Symbolic Components to the images

Light: spiritual illumination in the darkness of ignorance. Also stands for joy, faith and witness.

Minotaur: lust, Devil, Cretan symbol of the tyranny of animal instinct and the destructiveness of repressed lust. There is personal identification on Picasso’s part to the Minotaur.

Two women in the tower: the number two represents ambivalence. It can also represent synthesis or division, attraction, repulsion, equilibrium, conflict. In Greek mythology, they are the celestial twins of darkness and light, Cautopates and Cautes).

The tower: a symbol of chastity, or of defense.

Young girl holding light: (a younger Marie-Therese): innocence, hope.

The sea: a maternal image, symbol of birth.  It can also represent transition. In psychoanalysis, the sea represents the energy of the unconscious and its mysterious depths.

Horse: Can represent lust, conquest. A white horse also represents light, life.

Dark: Although dark is commonly associated with death, sin, ignorance and evil. It also stands for potential life; such as the darkness of germination¹. It also dramatizes loss and absence. Dark is also used to express aggression and danger.

Wheat: is an emblem of growth, rebirth, and fertility.

1. Tresidder,30.

Boat: is a symbol of safe passage (across to the other shore).

Torn clothing:  represents anger.

Rain/small cloudburst: rain is seen as a symbol of fecundity; in primitive agricultural societies, it is linked with divine semen (also in Greek mythology). Rain is also seen as a blessing.

Ladder: ascend to heaven or descend to earth, but suggests an unstable link.

Man on the ladder: is the most ambiguous of all the characters in the scene. He is Christ-like, so his image could be one of sacrifice. He also resembles Socrates, and within that context, might represent self-examination, sacrificial, or a voyeur.

Doves: represent peace, chastity, purity. Also was the attribute of the great Semitic and Greco-Roman love goddesses.  He named one of his daughters Paloma (Spanish word for dove).

Sword: authority, justice, intellectual and light. In the Freudian school of thought, it was also seen as a phallic symbol.