Bacchus

Bacchus is an early work by Caravaggio in which the god of wine appears as a young man lounging on a couch, stripped of the heroic trappings usually associated with classical mythology. It is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Its date remains uncertain: some scholars place it between 1596 and 1597, others around 1598. It was painted shortly after the artist entered the service of Cardinal Del Monte, a patron who gathered a learned circle interested in humanism, and the cardinal seems to have intended it as a gift for Ferdinando I de' Medici on the occasion of the wedding of his son Cosimo II. If that reading holds, the picture carried a sly joke, since the Grand Duke was known for his frugality and, reportedly, did not drink wine at all.

The god wears vine leaves and grapes in his hair and toys with the cord of a loose robe that barely covers him. On a stone table in front of him sit a bowl of fruit and a glass jug of red wine, and with his left hand he offers the viewer a broad, shallow cup, as if inviting us to join him. Small details suggest the wine has just been poured: foam sits on its surface and the cup trembles slightly in an unsteady grip. Flushed cheeks set against pale skin hint at mild drunkenness. Some scholars, Maurizio Calvesi among them, have read the ambiguous figure and the offered cup symbolically, as a foreshadowing of Christian sacrifice. Others stress the realism, noting that Caravaggio may have worked before a mirror, which would explain why the hand that looks like the left is in fact the right. What we see is less a god than an ordinary young model in costume, tired of posing, whose gaze is almost challenging.

Painter

Caravaggio

Date

1590

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

95 × 85 cm

Museum

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Movement

Italian Baroque painting

Genre

mythological painting

Depicts

Dionysus, Bacchus

Share:FacebookWhatsApp