imported>Guerreroast: Clean up

2024-04-05T21:01:52Z

Clean up

New page

{{Short description|Painting by Diego Velázquez}}
{{Infobox Painting
| title = The Triumph of Bacchus<br>or Los borrachos
| image_file = Velázquez - El Triunfo de Baco o Los Borrachos (Museo del Prado, 1628-29).jpg
| artist = [[Diego Velázquez]]
| year = 1628–1629
| medium = [[Oil on canvas]]
| height_metric = 165
| width_metric = 225
| museum = [[Museo del Prado]]
| city = [[Madrid]]
}}

'''''The Triumph of Bacchus''''' ([[Greek language|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 [[Madrid]] from [[Seville]] and just before his voyage to [[Italy]]. The work was painted for [[Philip IV of Spain|Philip IV]], who paid Velázquez 100 [[ducats]] for it.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Triumph of Bacchus, or the Drinkers|url=http://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/online-gallery/on-line-gallery/obra/the-triumph-of-bacchus-or-the-drunkards/|work=On-line gallery|publisher=Museo Nacional del Prado|access-date=January 7, 2013}}</ref> The painting shows [[Dionysus|Bacchus]] surrounded by drunks. In Madrid, Velázquez was able to study the king's collection of Italian paintings and was no doubt struck by the [[nudity]] in many paintings as well as the treatment of [[mythology|mythological]] subjects.

''The Triumph of Bacchus'' has been described as the masterpiece of Velázquez's 1620s paintings.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uxhDegm5N7oC&pg=PA116|title=Painting in Spain: 1500-1700|page=116|last=Brown|first=Jonathan|publisher=[[Yale University Press]]|date=1998|isbn=0300064748}}</ref>

==Description==
[[File:Niccoò Frangipane (attr) Bacchanal.jpg|thumb|left|[[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 [[skin]] is paler than that of his companions, rendering him more easily recognizable. Unusually, the rest of the group, apart from the figure naked to the waist behind the god, are in the contemporary costume of poor people in 17th-century Spain. The work represents Bacchus as the god who rewards or gifts men with wine, temporarily releasing them from their problems. In [[Baroque literature]], Bacchus was considered an [[allegory]] of the liberation of man from the slavery of daily life.

[[File:Triumph of Bacchus - Sousse (edit).jpg|thumb|''The Triumph of [[Bacchus]]'', a [[Roman mosaic]] from [[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 ''[[Last Judgement]]'' scenes, who is often shown seated and naked to the waist. Bacchus and the character behind him are represented in the traditional loose robes used for depictions of classical myth. The idealization of the god's face is highlighted by the clear [[light]] which illuminates him in a more [[classicism|classicist]] style.<ref name= "MM">'''L. Cirlot''' (org.), ''Museo del Prado II'', Col. "Museos del Mundo", Volume 7, Espasa, 2007. {{ISBN|978-84-674-3810-9}}, pp. 20-21</ref> The right side, however, presents some drunkards, men of the streets that invite us to join their party, with a very [[Spain|Spanish]] atmosphere similar to [[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 [[Naturalism (arts)|naturalism]] in this work, such as the [[bottle]] and [[pitcher (container)|pitcher]] which appear on the ground close to the god's feet; Velázquez employed the contrast of the god's bright body to lend relief and texture to the bottle and pitcher, creating something akin to a [[still life]]. These jars are very similar to the ones which appear in paintings made by Velázquez during his period in Seville, and the combination of still life elements of naturalistic genre figures relates to the ''[[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 [[satyr]]s 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 [[Jusepe de Ribera|Ribera's]] naturalistic portraits of figures from antiquity, sometimes depicted as [[beggar]]s.<ref>Beth Harris in the Khan video</ref> Entertainments hosted by Bacchus appear as an occasional subject in art from the Renaissance onwards, as one type of the wider subject of the [[Feast of the gods (art)|''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,<ref>Vlieghe, H. (1998), ''Flemish art and architecture, 1585–1700'', p. 105, Yale University Press Pelican history of art. New Haven: Yale University Press. {{ISBN|0300070381}}</ref> Some paintings show Bacchus with revellers in contemporary modern dress, as in the Frangipane illustrated.<ref>For example [[:File:Bastianino Baco Cassa Risparmio Ferrara.jpg|this]]</ref>

[[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."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/9613047/The-painting-that-changed-my-life.html|title=The painting that changed my life|newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|date=October 17, 2012|access-date=July 9, 2017}}</ref>

==See also==
{{commons category|The Triumph of Bacchus by Velazquez}}
*[[List of works by Diego Velázquez]]
*[[Feast of the Gods (art)]]

==References==
{{external media | width = 210px | float = right | video1 = [http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/los-borrachos-or-the-triumph-of-bacchus.html Velázquez's ''Los Borrachos'' or ''The Triumph of Bacchus''], [[Smarthistory]]<ref name="smarth">{{cite web | title =Velázquez's ''Los Borrachos'' or ''The Triumph of Bacchus'' | publisher =[[Smarthistory]] at [[Khan Academy]] | url =http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/los-borrachos-or-the-triumph-of-bacchus.html | access-date =January 7, 2013 | archive-date =January 16, 2013 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20130116234107/http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/los-borrachos-or-the-triumph-of-bacchus.html | url-status =dead }}</ref> }}
{{reflist}}

{{Diego Velázquez}}
{{Museo del Prado}}
{{ACArt|country=ES}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Triumph of Bacchus, The}}
[[Category:1629 paintings]]
[[Category:Paintings by Diego Velázquez in the Museo del Prado]]
[[Category:Mythological paintings by Diego Velázquez]]
[[Category:Paintings of Bacchus]]
[[Category:Food and drink paintings]]

The Triumph of Bacchus - Revision history

imported>Guerreroast: Clean up