The Triumph of Bacchus

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Triumph of Bacchus
or Los borrachos
Oil on canvas
Dimensions165 cm × 225 cm (65 in × 89 in)
LocationMuseo del Prado, Madrid

The Triumph of Bacchus (Greek: Ο Θρίαμβος του Βάκχου) is a painting by Diego Velázquez, now in the Museo del Prado, in Madrid. It is popularly known as Los borrachos or The Drinkers (also The Drunks).

Velázquez painted The Triumph of Bacchus after arriving in

mythological
subjects.

The Triumph of Bacchus has been described as the masterpiece of Velázquez's 1620s paintings.[2]

Description

Niccolò Frangipane (d. 1597, attributed to) Bacchanal. Here too Bacchus has brought a single companion from the world of mythology.

In the work, Bacchus is represented as a person at the center of a small celebration, but his

Baroque literature, Bacchus was considered an allegory
of the liberation of man from the slavery of daily life.

Africa Proconsolaris, dated 3rd century AD, now in the Sousse Archaeological Museum
, Tunisia

The scene can be divided in two halves. On the left, there is the very luminous Bacchus figure, his dominant but relaxed pose somewhat reminiscent of that of Christ in many

José de Ribera in style. There is no idealization present in their large and worn-out faces, though the figure kneeling in front of the god is younger and better dressed than the others, with a sword and tall boots. The light which illuminates Bacchus is absent on this side; the figures are shown with chiaroscuro
and have much darker skin.

In this work, Velázquez adopted a realist treatment of a mythological subject, a tendency he would pursue further during the following years.

There are various elements of

bodegon
 subjects he painted there.

Influence

The Triumph of Bacchus received a number of rather grand and elaborate idealized treatments in Renaissance art, of which Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne, then in the Spanish royal collection, was an imaginative variant. Usually Bacchus was processing in a chariot drawn by leopards, with a retinue of satyrs and revellers, including his guardian Silenus. The use of the title for Velázquez's painting is almost ironic given the very different treatment here.

One inspiration for Velázquez is Caravaggio's treatments of religious subjects combining central figures in traditional iconographical robes with subsidiary figures in contemporary dress, and

Feast of the gods in art: around 1550 Taddeo Zuccari painted a large feast at the Wedding of Bacchus and Ariadne in fresco in the Villa Giulia, Rome,[5] Some paintings show Bacchus with revellers in contemporary modern dress, as in the Frangipane illustrated.[6]

Mark Wallinger argued that The Triumph of Bacchus prefigured Las Meninas and stated, "Velázquez presents us with a complexity of focal points. [...] The look [the two liggers on the left of Bacchus] direct at the viewer slices clean through 350 years in the most disconcerting way. [...] However one might describe them, we are made complicit in the meaning of the work."[7]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Triumph of Bacchus by Velazquez.

References

External videos
video icon Velázquez's Los Borrachos or The Triumph of Bacchus, Smarthistory[8]
  1. ^ "The Triumph of Bacchus, or the Drinkers". On-line gallery. Museo Nacional del Prado. Retrieved January 7, 2013.
  2. ISBN 0300064748
    .
  3. ISBN 978-84-674-3810-9
    , pp. 20-21
  4. ^ Beth Harris in the Khan video
  5. ISBN 0300070381
  6. ^ For example this
  7. ^ "The painting that changed my life". The Daily Telegraph. October 17, 2012. Retrieved July 9, 2017.
  8. ^ "Velázquez's Los Borrachos or The Triumph of Bacchus". Smarthistory at Khan Academy. Archived from the original on January 16, 2013. Retrieved January 7, 2013.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Triumph_of_Bacchus&oldid=1217440517"