Many of Picasso's works from the 1930 are built around the opposing characteristics of male and female figures. Picasso's approach to this dichotomy may owe something to the influential aesthetic theories developed by Friedrich Nietzsche and his thesis that art is composed of two conflicting tendencies, the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The characteristics assigned by Nietzsche to the Dionysian and to the Apollonian artist correspond closely to the personality traits exhibited by the female—temperamental, moody—and the male—calm, disciplined. The Apollonian-Dionysian conflict is extended in Nietzsche's aesthetic theory to artistic creation, which is the product of these two opposing, yet complementary, aspects of art. Quite often in the works of Picasso dating from 1930s, the female figures metamorphoses into plant tendrils, blooming flowers, and ripe fruits (cf. Daix 1965, 147). Often the male insinuates himself symbolically into the paintings, where the arm of the striped chair seems to be embracing/restraining the seated woman.

            In Kuspit's opinion, there is as much hatred as love—as much Thanatos as Eros—between Lamb’s figures. To quote his words, "Cupid’s arrow wounds, love breaks the heart into dark and pale, hard and soft, crude and delicate, masculine and feminine halves. Intimacy is hard to achieve, and never seems more than tentative and nominal in Lamb’s relationships. The couple is always on the verge of completely splitting apart—like the heart—for the tension between them is too much to bear." The crucial antithetical male component in the fruitful regeneration of nature is symbolized in Lamb's works by the facial outlines that define the floral bouquet through their confrontation—cf. Untitled (EU200:308) and Untitled (EU200:339).

            The metaphoric association between sexual intercourse and vegetal growth is a recognized formula in Picasso. In her lengthy study of the autographical component in Picasso's oeuvre Gedo (1980) has carefully examined the iconography of the works he created between August 1932 and April 1933. As she describes it, the artist's young lover at the time, Marie-Thérèse Walter, appears in these works "in close proximity to a potted plant which covers her face like a transparent hand—cf. Femme assise (OPP.32:71). The sun appears right behind her, and a bird soon emerges, as it were from this orb, to hover right above the girl's head—cf. Femme assise (OPP.32:73). Initially, the creature seems benign, resembling a white dove, but his color soon changes from white to black, a transformation accompanied by diffuse, smeary shading which spills over from the bird's body into the surrounding areas, including the girl's hair—cf. Femme assise (OPP.32:73); and Femme assise (OPP.32:74). Finally, the bird changes into a much larger crow, which alights atop Marie-Thérèse's head—cf. Femme assise (OPP.32:77)" (Gedo 1980, 148). This series is followed by scenes at a seashore. Here again the tone is ominous, as if something tragic had happened or was about to happen—cf. Deux femmes jouant au ballon devant une cabine (OPP.32:36), Baigneuses OPP.32:37, etc.). In Sur la plage (OPP.32:78), Marie-Thérèse appears "as a sun bather ... [with] a long knife-like object (it may actually be a canoe), poised on a launching machine propelled by a pair of over-sized human ears which replace its wheels. Marie-Thérèse perches near the sharp end of this object, holding a kind of balancing staff, perhaps a leafy bough. In the shadows of this drawing, covered with dense cross-hatching, lurk ogre-like figures who seem to menace her"  (Gedo 1980, 148).  These motifs, which are accompanied by themes of persecution, threat, demise and rescue—cf. Personnage courant et étude d'oreille (OPP.32:79), Personnage courant (OPP.32:80), etc.—have prompted critics to see some correlation with contemporaneous events in Picasso's life. The hypothesis adopted by Gedo is that Marie-Thérèse might have unexpectedly become pregnant, which might have led to suicidal thoughts or even attempts on her own life, and presumably to the termination of her pregnancy through abortion. Regardless of the actual course of events, what we see is a rapid transition in this period from the representation of the lover/model as a symbol of restful fertility to one of sacrificial regeneration.

            The two topics of life and death are not without a close connection in Picasso's conception of human fate. As Chipp (1988, 45-46) has pointed out, the view that death is omnipresent and that life is a constant struggle, balancing precariously on the precipice between survival and annihilation is deeply rooted in the Spanish character. The Andalusian poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca characterized this Spanish spirit as the duende, "the Spanish obsession with walking at the brink of death, for it is only when confronting death and exorcizing it by courageous and total disregard that a true nobility of spirit is achieved ... In the deepest spiritual sense duende is the source of what is real in the most moving art." For the poet the Spanish duende finds its most compelling expression, in the Spanish corrida, where the sure death of the bull and the potential death of the torero take on a solemn sacrificial intensity. Picasso was a constant and ardent aficionado of the corrida prompting the Spanish critic Ramón Gómez de la Serna to equate the artist's gestures and expressions as he painted with those of the matador engaging a bull. The sacrifice of the bull at the bull rink was reminiscent of the slaying on the mythological Minotaur, a theme that the Spaniard would explore in the 1930s. Costello (1979, 259-266) has noted that despite his roots in ancient Cretan mythology, Picasso's Minotaur conforms to no single myth. What one finds is an implicit sense of violent, ceremonial conflict culminating in a sacrificial act. The suggestion of a sacrificial rite also relates Picasso's Minotaur to another ancient legendary figure, the god Mithras. Of all the exploits of Mithras, the most significant act was the slaying of the Primeval Bull. In typical portrayals of this killing, the animal's blood gushes forth as grain, and is accompanied by several figures symbolic of the cycle of death and renewal, as associated with the principle of sacrifice. The presence of this cycle of destruction and creation in Picasso's fruitful career has often been stressed. In a conversation with his first cataloguer Christian Zervos, the artist is quoted as saying:  'A picture used to be a sum of additions. With me, a picture is a sum of destructions' (cf. Vallentin 1963, 87).

            The same combination of death and renewal is clearly visible in Matt Lamb's oeuvre. Lamb is quoted by Michael D. Hall in "Matt Lamb: The Handwriting in the Mall" as saying: "In my philosophy of my art (flowers) are people. We come of seed, we grow, we flower, we wilt, we die—then we are reborn again." The cyclic notion of life is evident in the twelve painted panels initially commissioned by the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, Mannheim (Germany) in 1997. The panels depict four stories from the Gospels, thematically entitled: The Birth of Christ, The Life of Christ, The Death of Christ, and The Resurrection of Christ. As Walsh has remarked, to be a religious artist, as is the case with Matt Lamb, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, a time when the universal values of faith are being challenged, is to embark on a personal spiritual quest. The same spiritual quest is also at the heart of Picasso's compositions of 1932. Like Picasso, other artists of the twentieth century including Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985), Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), and Paul Klee (1879-1940) had been interested the spiritual level of their work. A more pertinent example, however, is Georges Rouault (1871-1958), who used the innocence and rawness of simple form to convey a much more humanist spiritual message in the same vein as Picasso and Lamb. As several art critics have noted, the latter's work shares important stylistic features with the work of Rouault, whose pictorial idiom was greatly influenced by the art of ecclesiastical stained glass windows. The function of Lamb's work, recently on exhibit in the nave of Westminster Cathedral, is not dissimilar to the role played by stained glass windows. This same function may be observed in Picasso's beach scenes of 1932, where the black outlines which delineate the figure merge with superimposed flat shapes in primary colors. One gets a sense of regeneration at work, of the physical mixture of ingredients from which life originates. For Walsh, the pictorial spaces in many of Lamb's works are like "undefined dreamscapes." The "combination of soldering and translucency" is something that his images have in common with glass windows. One is reminded of the famous Jeune fille devant un miroir (OPP.32:01) which Picasso executed in 1932. In Picasso, as in Lamb, the black outlines give structure to forms just like lead defines the glass shapes in a stained glass. Without the support of the network of black outlines, the forms mix, merge and metamorphose into new forms. Lamb shares with Picasso this sensation of intense emotional charge, of something about to be born. As in Lamb, the translucency of these forms also symbolize transcendence. The happiness which may be found in both artists is at times tinted by a negative foreboding of an impending tragic event, a sacrificial rite. The spiritual nature of these compositions is obvious in Picasso's case, when we take into consideration that the artist interspersed between them scenes of crucifixion within the same time period. Death through sacrifice and ensuing rebirth are crucial ingredients in the cycle of life. Lamb's works are not free from an imminent threat. Many of his floral compositions define the shadow of a figure, an observer lurking in the background—cf. Untitled (2000:093), Untitled (EU2000: 310). The negative force appears to negate the possibility of a complete resolution. Growth requires this dichotomy. Life can only emanate out of the sacrifice implicit in this primordial conflict.

            Sacrifice is often present in universal myths of death and life. Jesus is by no means the first being, either mortal or divine, to sacrifice himself for the good of mankind; the idea of Jesus' death bringing salvation originates much earlier. In Aztec mythology, for instance, both gods and man must sacrifice themselves in exchange for the sun to rise. In many Native American myths, new plants that will benefit mankind spring up from the pieces of a hero or heroine's dead body. In Egyptian mythology also, the God Osiris is killed, and restored to life only temporarily by his wife Isis, who bears him a child. Osiris returns to rule the Underworld, and his son Horus takes the throne he had held when he was living. This myth mixes both seasonal mythology, and the idea of a continual cycle of life and death, as no plants grew between the time of Osiris death, and when his son took the throne. The myth also recognizes the fact that the older generations die to make way for the next ones and in ancient times, we see that people were more connected to the Earth, and to death. Animals and plants had to be killed for food. This brought the realization that many animals and plants have to die each year. Changing seasons were related to the death of Gods. During winter the Greek Persephone was said to be with her husband in the underworld; when spring came, she returned to her mother Demeter Goddess of plants. In Norse mythology it is Balder who dies in fall, killed by his blind brother Horus (Winter). In some pagan mythologies a sun god is born at Yule. In the summer he becomes the consort of the Goddess, and in fall he dies. The cycle is repeated with the birth of his child at Yule. Behind the dark figure of the semi-crucified males in Untitled (1998:222), Untitled (2000:230) and Untitled (2000:023), for example, the new sun begins to rise.

            Bataille—an author who greatly influenced Picasso—analyzed the close interdependence between sacrifice and life (cf. John Lechte 1994). Without in the least condoning it, Bataille showed that sacrifice does conform to a certain logic. In the first place, human sacrifice is a way of introducing disequilibrium into a society dominated by utilitarian exchange values. The degradation of utilitarian relations is embodied in slavery, where the slave is a mere object to be used by free people. The sacrificial victim, by contrast, was often treated humanely, and even given a privileged treatment; for there was an intimate connection between "sacrificed" and "sacrificer." The victim in fact perishes in the place of the executioner. The fomer represents the experience of death of the latter, an experience manifest in anguish as the executioner identifies with the suffering of the victim. Bataille argued that sacrifice "restores to the sacred world that which servile use has degraded, rendered profane." The sacred, then, lies beyond utilitarianism; it has no equivalent: nothing, as a result, can be a substitute for the sacrificial act. In a society where egoistic hedonism has almost completely taken over, sacrifice cannot be understood. However, it still has an echo in bodily mutilation (such as Van Gogh’s)—one is reminded of the floating ear in Picasso's 1932 work Personnage courant et étude d'oreille (OPP.32:78)—, where the act ruptures the homogeneity of self, and introduces heterogeneity into communal life. By a somewhat paradoxical turn, the rupture of sacrifice and mutilation turns into a moment of continuity. For the witness who experiences the anguish of identification with the victim also communicates this to the other, and so establishes an interrelatedness with his/her "opponent." As a result, "the sacred is only a privileged moment of communal unity, a convulsive form of what is ordinarily stifled." In a dark twist of events Vice Chancellor von Papen—as a spokesman for the nazi regime—would make a speech on May 12, 1933 glorifying war with not completely dissimilar words: "The maintenance of eternal life demanded the sacrifice of the individual" (Doc. Int. Affairs 1933, 406.)

            As Kuspit writes in "Madness and Matt Lamb", the artist's figures "may fuse with other figures in the crowd—the jumpy dancer has a green-faced, blonde-haired woman’s head growing out of his left leg—but this only confirms the uncertainty of their own identities. Dionysian metamorphosis is a crowd phenomenon, as Nietzsche made clear: the Dionysian loses his identity in the orgy of the crowd ... In contrast, the Apollonian maintains separateness, integrity, individuality, identity by keeping apart from and above—militantly refusing to be absorbed by—it. Indeed, the fish that appears in Dance of Fury, as it does elsewhere, clearly indicates that Lamb’s figures swim in and with the crowd. But then his black figure is partly Apollonian, for it resists the crowd—swims alone.

            Michael D. Hall also notes that the figures in Lamb's works become "more ephemeral and amorphous as they subsume the forms of the birds and animals around them into the shapes of their own bodies. They have evolved from the world of the physical and material into the world of the spirit. They float and tumble through a sea of life—the bubbles and flowers that flow endlessly back and for the through Lamb's painted vision"—cf. Untitled (EU2000:460). The same aquatic world imbues many of Picasso's works from September 1932—cf. Trois femmes jouant au ballon sur la plage (OPP.32:66).

            As Lechte has argued, eroticism becomes, in Bataille’s theory, a way to the continuity of being in death. In eroticism, human sexuality obtains its zenith as a regulated transgression. As an individual, each person is discontinuous. In contrast, eroticism is a violation of this discontinuity. It is also the violation, or transgression, of interdictions; the interdiction is made known by the transgression, becoming a fundamental source of anguish. In other words, eroticism confirms the rupture of boundaries and frontiers, leading to a fusion of beings. This fusion in turn gives rise to the human anguish based on a felt loss of integrity. The erotic impulse has, for this reason, been appropriated for religious ends. And so, instead of being the very antithesis of the sacred, eroticism—as an opening up to otherness—is its very foundation. Through tears, wounds, and the violation of boundaries, human beings are united. Kuspitt has proposed that Lamb’s pictures may be read as "metamorphic composites"—as the wild Pro Life and Pro Choice figures are. But they are all as "crucified" as the Pro Kill figure. It is only through the crucifixion (sacrifice) that the self finds its integration in the All. Michael D. Hall notes how around the "creator" in many of Lamb's narratives we often find a field of colorful dots and splashes of bright color, described by the artist as representing flowers and bubbles—his symbols for "life force." Sacrifical victim and creator become one in their regenerating function. As Picasso shows towards the end of 1932—cf. Le sauvetage (OPP.32: 56)—the sacrifice of the maiden constitutes the crucial element in the beginning of the cycle of life. Through her immersion (drowning) in the totality of the universe, the flowers may again blossom. "The process of absorption—dissolution—always seems to be in progress", Kuspit says. The figure proves to be a mere transient illusion, "impulsively spawned" from its primordial sea, a complex of colors and textures which are the essential biological ingredients of life, the same components one sees in Pablo Picasso's surrealist works dating from the summer of 1932. In the final sexual/sacrificial act, male and female merge in a climax which breaks the barriers between the beginning and the end, life and death.