Theseus Killing the Minotaur

Cima's Theseus Killing the Minotaur (1505) at the National Gallery, London, is an unusual secular mythological subject for a painter almost exclusively known for religious altarpieces — demonstrating that he could work outside his devotional specialty when the market required it. The subject, from Ovid and Greek mythology, depicted the Athenian hero's slaying of the monstrous bull-man in the Cretan labyrinth. The work was presumably produced for a collector interested in classical subjects, the growing taste for mythological painting among Venetian patrons in the early sixteenth century creating demand that Cima could occasionally satisfy alongside his primary devotional output.

Cima's characteristic clarity of form and crystalline light are applied here to a dynamic action scene, with the muscular hero rendered in a sculptural manner against a precisely observed landscape background.