Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus
Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus, (
It has been suggested that the concentration of images by the
Proverb
The phrase derives from Terence's comedy Eunuchus, in which Chremes says to Pythias in the fifth scene of the fourth act (732), verbum hercle hoc verum erit "sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus" ('That saying, "Without Ceres and Liber, Venus freezes" is absolutely true!'). Thus the phrase was probably a well-known proverb at the time as well. Chremes makes use of it to declare how Pythias seems even more beautiful than usual to him during the rowdy partying after a large meal.[6] Liber, the son of Ceres and god of human prosperity (and also of wine), was later replaced with Bacchus. The phrase is found in a similar form in Cicero,[7] who quotes it as an example of the stylistic device of metonymy.[8] In later times it was universally attributed to Terence.
In the Middle Ages, Caesarius of Heisterbach used it in his work, Dialogus miraculorum to warn against luxury and frivolity and to advocate an ascetic lifestyle.[9]
It was also employed in this moral sense in the influential Latin florilegium
- Ohne Wein und Brot ist Venus tot. ('Without wine and bread, Venus is dead')
- Ohn Speis und Trank ist Venus krank. ('Without cheer and ale, Venus is frail')
- Ohne Kost und ohne Wein kann die Liebe nicht gedeihn. ('Without food and without wine, love cannot shine')[13]
Subject in art
Depictions in art divide into those showing Venus, typically with an accompanying Cupid, either "freezing", without food and drink (or much in the way of clothing), or more comfortable when supplied with them, usually by the other gods in person.[15] The latter type is more common, but Bartholomeus Spranger and Rubens are among the artists who used both types.[16] Like the Feast of the Gods, another subject popular among the Northern Mannerists, the subject offers the combination of a relatively obscure classical reference and the opportunity for plentiful nudity. The subject appears in paintings, drawings and prints, and compositions are often copied between these media, and between artists.
Initially the depiction of this motif were closely tied to text and was found mostly in emblem books, with the first appearance in the Picta poesis of 1552, by Barthélemy Aneau.[17] The Mikrokosmos, an emblem book of 1579 by the Dutch poet Laurentius Haechtanus may be the first depiction of the shivering Venus, as Ceres and Bacchus walk away.[18] The Latin text makes clear that the motif is to be understood as a warning against excessive feasting and drinking because they stimulate sexual desire:
Explain,
CytheranVenus, and Cupid too:
Why do you warm your own feet, warm your own hands?
Perhaps because eloquentIacchosis not helping you?
Isn't dusty Ceres around either?
Where sobriety reigns, harmful lust freezes
and no war is waged against the curier.[19]
Wherever powerful drunkenness and excess reign,
the mother of adultery begins her ruthless war.
The motif was especially favoured in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in the Netherlands and in the circle of
Early examples of the motif as the subject of an independent painting are Spranger's pair of paintings of about 1590,[21] and Hans von Aachen's Bacchus, Ceres und Amor (1598), all painted for Rudolf II. The Spranger was turned into a print in Amsterdam in about 1597 by Jan Harmensz. Muller.[22] Hendrick Goltzius produced at least 10 versions of the subject,[23] including a monumental work in the unusual technique of pen and limited colour on canvas, here highly effective (illustrated here). This was also (probably) in Rudolf's collection, then in the royal collections of Sweden and England, and is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.[24] A different work on the subject in the same technique is in the Hermitage, which includes a self-portrait by Goltzius in the background.[25]
Especially in Goltzius' version, the undertones of danger and the moral point of the allegory are still clear, although the motif later moved far from a narrow moral message about personal moderation.[27]
Several of the print versions carry the proverb text, which it was presumably felt needed stating for a wider public. Reference to the motif is uncertain in some works, or groups of works,[28] but it is at least arguable that any combination of the three gods, with or without Amor, carries a reference to it, as there is no other context that brings this particular group together. Two different sets of prints by Goltzius showed each of the three gods in turn; in one set, engraved by Jan Saenredam, each is surrounded by worshippers.[29] Two late paintings by Joachim Wtewael show half-length portraits of Bacchus and Ceres, and it is presumed that a Venus is missing to complete the set; another small painting by Wtewael shows the three gods, and Amor, together.[30]
Rubens employed the motif repeatedly in different ways, including the visibly freezing Venus Frigida, a version with Amor who desperately attempts to start a fire, and one with Venus at the Moment maßvollen Erwärmens und ruhigen Erwachens ('Moment of modestly warming and quietly waking') in which she hesitantly accepts a wine cup from Bacchus.[31] Italian artists rarely depicted it, whether because it came from the mainly northern tradition of emblem books or because the subject had less resonance in a warmer climate.[32] Exceptions are a painting by Pietro Liberi and a print by Agostino Carracci after one by Goltzius.[33] After the baroque period the motif no longer appears often.
Haarlem brewers' propaganda
The
Both Bacchus, as by extension the god of all alcoholic drinks, and Ceres, as the goddess covering the raw materials, were symbolic of
In particular Jan Mathijsz Ban was a leading brewer, a friend of artists and a significant collector, spending many weeks touring Italy with Goltzius. With another brewer, he was the dedicatee of the central part of van Manders' Schilder-boeck. Van Mander praises the taste and knowledge of the Haarlem brewers at various points,[40] and "Both Van Mander’s text and Goltzius’ images present Bacchus as a sober, elegant divinity, a gentle and polite god not associated at all with excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages", contrary to much previous imagery.[41]
-
Bartholomäus Spranger, c. 1590, for Rudolf
-
1598, Hans von Aachen: Bacchus, Ceres und Armor
-
Rubens 1614, Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Wien
-
Jan Miel, 1645
Lord Byron
Lord Byron expanded on the proverb in Don Juan:
... some good lessons
Are also learnt from Ceres and from Bacchus
Without whom Venus will not long attack us.
While Venus fills the heart (without heart really
Love, though good always, is not quite so good),
Ceres presents a plate of vermicelli, –
For love must be sustain'd like flesh and blood, –
While Bacchus pours out wine, or hands a jelly.— Don Juan Canto II, sections 169–170
Notes
- ^ Bull, 218–219
- ^ Or 'grows cold', 'chills' etc
- ^ Liber was an alternative Roman name for Bacchus, as the older local wine god for Rome
- ^ Bull, 218–219
- ^ Santos, especially p. 21 onwards
- ^ Erasmus, 178
- ^ Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.32.43
- ^ De nat. deor. 2.23.60, cited after Gerd Hagenow: Der nicht ausgekehrte Speisesaal (PDF; 3,5 MB), note 7
- ^ Dialogus miraculorum 112
- ^ WA 1,519
- ^ Adagia 1297 = II.3.97
- ^ Singer, pp. 453f.
- ^ Publius Terentius Afer: Lustspiele, translated by Christian Victor Kindervater. Leipzig: Frommann, 1799, p. 175 (Digitised)
- ^ Twelfth Night 2.1.123, Sir Toby Belch to Malvolio; see Erasmus, 178
- ^ Bull, 218–219
- ^ Bull, 218–219
- ^ Santos, fig. 3, pp. 12–13
- ^ Bull, 218
- ^ i.e. the moderate man
- ^ Hinz, pp. 380–394
- ^ Metzler, 126-129
- ^ British Museum, Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus (Without Bacchus and Ceres, Venus grows cold), object listing
- ^ Bull, 219
- ^ Phildalephia Museum of Art; "The Picture That Spurred A Splendid Exhibition", by Edward J. Sozanski, Inquirer Art Critic, November 24, 1991, philly.com (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
- ^ Review in New York Times of exhibition in Philadelphia in 1992; Santos, 34–35, fig. 28
- ^ lot notes, Sotheby's, New York. Sale "Important Old Master Paintings Including European Works of Art", 24 Jan 2008, Lot 3
- ^ Hinz, pp. 380–394
- ^ Santos, 20
- ^ Santos, 16–18, figs 8–10 and 15–17; Bull, 219
- ISBN 9780691166063
- ^ Hinz, p. 389
- ^ Bull, 219
- ^ British Museum, object page; Santos, fig. 5, pp. 13–14
- ^ Santos, especially 21–28
- ^ Santos, especially p. 21 onwards
- ^ Santos, 29–31
- ^ Santos, 30–36
- ^ Santos, pp. 27–28, each quoted in turn
- ^ Santos, 29
- ^ Santos, 26–27
- ^ Santos, 29
- ^ Version in reverse of this print (British Museum page)
References
- Malcolm Bull, The Mirror of the Gods, How Renaissance Artists Rediscovered the Pagan Gods, Oxford UP, 2005, ISBN 978-0195219234
- ISBN 978-0802048745
- Berthold Hinz, "... non iam friget – Jordaens blickt auf Rubens." In Bruno Klein, Harald Wolter-von dem Knesebeck (Edd.): Nobilis Arte Manus. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Antje Middeldorf Kosegarten. 2nd Revised Edition. B. Klein, Dresden u. a. 2002, ISBN 3-00-009205-6, pp. 380–394, (Digitised; PDF; 4,3 MB).
- Santos, R. de Mambro, "The Beer of Bacchus. Visual Strategies and Moral Values in Hendrick Goltzius’ Representations of Sine Cerere et Libero Friget Venus", in Emblemi in Olanda e Italia tra XVI e XVII secolo, ed. E. Canone and L. Spruit, 2012, Olschki Editore, Florence, web text on academia.edu
- Metzler, Sally, Bartholomeus Spranger: Splendor and Eroticism in Imperial Prague, 2014, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014, ISBN 0300208065, 9780300208061, google books
- Samuel Singer, Thesaurus Proverbiorum Medii Aevi. = Lexikon der Sprichworter des Romanisch-germanischen Mittelalters. Band 7: Kern – Linie. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin u. a. 1998 ISBN 3-11-016119-2, pp. 453f.
Further reading
- Scott, Marian Franson, Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus is Chilled: The Changing Interpretation in Late Mannerist and Baroque Art of a Mythological Theme from Terence, 1974, thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill