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 Madrid from Seville and just before his voyage to Italy. The work was painted for Philip IV, who paid Velázquez 100 ducats for it.[1] The painting shows 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 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 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.
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 classicist style.[3] The right side, however, presents some drunkards, men of the streets that invite us to join their party, with a very 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 in this work, such as the bottle and 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 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 Ribera's naturalistic portraits of figures from antiquity, sometimes depicted as beggars.[4] 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 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]
^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
El Greco: The Nobleman with his Hand on his Chest – Adoration of the Shepherds – Doña María de Aragón Altarpiece – Annunciation – Christ Carrying the Cross – The Fable – The Flight into Egypt – Holy Face of Jesus – Holy Trinity – Julián Romero and Saint Julian – Portrait of a Doctor – Portrait of a Gentleman – Portrait of a Young Nobleman – Portrait of an Elderly Man – Portrait of an Unknown Gentleman – Portrait of Jerónimo de Cevallos – Portrait of Rodrigo Vázquez de Arce – Saint Andrew and Saint Francis – Saint Anthony of Padua – Saint Bernardino of Siena[1] – Saint James the Great – Saint John the Evangelist – Saint Paul – Saint Sebastian – Saint Thomas the Apostle – Holy Trinity – The Saviour – Virgin Mary
Luna: The Death of Cleopatra
Maíno: Adoration of the Magi – Portrait of a Gentleman – The Recovery of Bahía de Todos los Santos
Murillo: Adoration of the Shepherds(1650) – Aranjuez Immaculate Conception – The Christ Child and the Infant John the Baptist with a Shell – Christ on the Cross(1675, 1677) – The Conversion of Saint Paul – The Good Shepherd – The Holy Family with a Little Bird – The Immaculate Conception of El Escorial – The Immaculate Conception of Los Venerables – The Martyrdom of Saint Andrew – Our Lady of the Rosary – The Patrician's Dream – Rebecca and Eleazar
Pradilla: Doña Joanna the Mad
Ribera: Jacob's Dream – Democritus – Isaac and Jacob – Ixion – Tityos – The Martyrdom of Saint Philip – The Blind Sculptor
Sánchez Gallque: The Mulattos of Esmeraldas[2]
Velázquez: Las Meninas – – Las Hilanderas – The Surrender of Breda – Mars Resting – Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV – Equestrian Portrait of Elisabeth of France – Equestrian Portrait of Prince Balthasar Charles – Equestrian Portrait of Philip III – Equestrian Portrait of Margarita of Austria – Equestrian Portrait of the Count-Duke of Olivares – Adoration of the Magi – Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan – Christ Crucified – Coronation of the Virgin – View of the Garden of the Villa Medici – Prince Balthasar Charles as a Hunter – Portrait of the Infante Don Carlos – Doña Antonia de Ipeñarrieta y Galdós and Her Son Don Luis – The Jester Barbarroja – The Jester Calabacillas – The Jester Don Diego de Acedo – The Jester Don John of Austria – Portrait of Francisco Lezcano – Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Pink Dress – Portrait of Maria Anna – Portrait of Juan Martínez Montañés – The Nun Jerónima de la Fuente – Portrait of Pablo de Valladolid – Portrait of Philip IV in Armour – Portrait of Mariana of Austria – Portrait of Sebastián de Morra
Zurbarán: Agnus Dei – The Death of Hercules – The Defence of Cádiz Against the English – Hercules and the Hydra – Hercules Separates Mounts Calpe and Abylla – Hercules Fighting the Nemean Lion – Saint Elizabeth of Portugal – Saint Luke Painting the Crucifixion – Saint Peter Nolasco's Vision of Saint Peter the Apostle – Still Life with Pots – The Vision of Saint Peter Nolasco
Bouts: Triptych with Scenes from the Life of the Virgin
Bruegel the Elder: The Triumph of Death – The Wine of Saint Martin's Day – Excursion in the Countryside of Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia – Life in the Countryside – The Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia in the Mariemont Park(with de Momper) – Landscape(with de Momper) – The Five Senses(with Rubens)
van Dyck: Self-portrait with Sir Endymion Porter – The Betrayal of Christ – The Brazen Serpent – Diana and a Nymph Surprised by a Satyr – Saint Rosalia – The Crowning with Thorns
van Hemessen: The Surgeon
Francken the Younger: The Sciences and the Arts
Jordaens: Apollo as Victor over Pan – Meleager and Atalanta – The Painter's Family
Memling: Adoration of the Magi
Mengs: Portrait of José Nicolás de Azara
de Momper: Landscape with Sea and Mountains – A Farm – Flemish Market and Washing Place – Landscape with Skaters – The Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia in the Mariemont Park(with Brueghel the Elder) – Landscape(with Brueghel the Elder)
Rubens: The Judgement of Paris(1638) – The Three Graces – Adoration of the Magi – The Dance of the Villagers – Diana and Callisto – Equestrian Portrait of the Duke of Lerma – The Fall of Man – The Garden of Love – The Birth of the Milky Way – The Rape of Europa – The Rape of Ganymede – Saint George and the Dragon – Saturn – The Triumph of the Church – Deucalion and Pyrrha – The Five Senses(with Brueghel the Elder)
Lorrain: Landscape with St Paula of Rome Embarking at Ostia – The Ford – Landscape with St María de Cervelló – Landscape with the Burial of St Serapia – Landscape with the Finding of Moses – Landscape with the Temptation of St Anthony – Landscape with Tobias and Raphael
Poussin: Parnassus – Landscape with Three Figures – Saint Cecilia
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Velázquez's Los Borrachos or The Triumph of Bacchus, Smarthistory[8]