She bends down to comfort the dying bull. She holds its horns in a loving and tender farewell to a creature slaughtered for sport. As the matador in his finery looks on helplessly at his moment of triumph being spoiled, officials try to pull animal rights activist Virginia Ruiz away from the beast to whom she brings solidarity and compassion. Did the beast know? Did this moment of mercy make a difference to it? And how long can Spain keep using bulls as sacrificial victims in archaic sports and festivals?

This dramatic protest in the bullring was one more incident during a summer of no fewer than 10 fatalities in the bull-running events that are popular in many Spanish towns. Bulls have been mythified in many cultures since the stone age. They appear in cave paintings as potent, supernatural horned beings. During the Minoan civilisation in Crete, young men leaped over bulls as part of a game that may also have been a religious ritual. This Minoan obsession with bulls is remembered in the Greek myth of the Minotaur, the half-bull, half-human monster that lived beneath the royal palace.

Nobody explored the mythology of bulls and bullfighting in more detail than Picasso. To him, it was tragedy

It is easy to imagine why early societies revered the powerful, dangerous, grandiose horned beast that is the bull, but much harder to understand why the animals are still – in effect – sacrificed in Spanish bullfights and used in primitivistic, savage bull-running rituals in Pamplona and other towns. Bullfighting was controversial in Spain as early as the 18th century, but is still apparently impossible to ban. Meanwhile, running with the bulls becomes more popular every year – this summer’s shocking spate of deaths reflects the number of young men willing to join in.

The image of a young woman leaping into the arena, making her protest and trying to console a dying bull is full of clues about the true appeal of bullfighting and bull running, and the survival of such archaic rites. It could hardly be clearer. What we see here is not just a protester disrupting a blood sport. It is very obviously a woman breaking up a male fantasy.

Marc Abraham (@marcthevet) 'Spain: Activist Jumps into Bullfighting Ring to Comfort Dying Bull' Amazingly brave: https://t.co/w4Rx6tF5qX pic.twitter.com/ud9s3U0szn

Giving the dying bull her compassion, Virginia Ruiz looks very much like a female intruder in a male world of blood lust and glorified violence.

In an almost eerie way, she draws attention to the masculine mythology of bullfighting through her – surely unintentional – evocation of one of the “sport’s” greatest aficionados. Virginia Ruiz staged her protest in the bullfighting arena in Malaga, the birthplace of Pablo Picasso. Not only that but her own name recalls this mighty artist, who frequently depicted bulls and bullfights and loved to attend the corrida. Picasso was born Pablo Ruiz y Picasso: he used his maternal name because it sounded better but his paternal surname was Ruiz. For all I know, Virginia Ruiz may even be related to him. At the very least, her name and the location of her protest suggest that Picasso’s chickens, or perhaps his doves, have come home to roost.

Man killed during bull run in Spain pushes death toll to 10 so far for year Read more

Nobody explored the mythology of bulls and bullfighting in more detail than Picasso. If we want to know why an archaic, primitive sport still attracts fans in a modern society, we can do no better than to consult the greatest modern artist. For Picasso, bullfighting was not taken lightly. It was a tragedy. His paintings of bullfights done in the 1930s are relentlessly gory. He spares no detail. A horse has its guts torn out by the bull. A matador is borne aloft on its horns. Picasso does not suppress the violence of the sport he loved: rather, he sees bullfighting precisely as a ritual of killing, a blood cult.

He also clearly – but in a complex, poetic way – identifies it with male sexuality and identity. He portrays the Minotaur as a figure of dark desire and masculine violence. In one print, a young girl helps a blinded Minotaur. In a painting that recalls stone age art, the Minotaur carries its female victim into a cave.

Virginia Ruiz and Pablo Ruiz Picasso turn out to be saying much the same thing about the bullring at Malaga – that it is a boys’ game. The passions that keep bullfighting alive and drive young men to their deaths in bull running are part of the dangerous psychological hand grenade that is masculinity. Why do men want to run in front of bulls? If we could answer that easily we might also find a cure for wars and violent crime. Let’s face it, men are mad. Picasso knew that and revealed it more honestly than any other artist. Virginia Ruiz has once again revealed it with her simple act of compassion, which cuts like a kindly knife through a male fantasy.