| The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Piero di Cosimo |
| Year | c. 1499 |
| Medium | Tempera with oil glazes on panel |
| Dimensions | 79.2 cm× 128.5 cm(31.2 in× 50.6 in) |
| Location | Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts |
The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus is a painting by Piero di Cosimo from c. 1499. It depicts the god Bacchus and the discovery of honey, as described in the ancient Roman poem Fasti by Ovid. It is in the collection of the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts.
The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus was commissioned together with a companion painting, The Misfortunes of Silenus, by Giovanni Vespucci in Florence. Both works represent an emerging, private demand for paintings with secular subjects. [1] Like Piero di Cosimo's other mythological paintings, they were made for an audience well versed in the works of Ovid and Virgil, inviting the viewers to demonstrate their erudition. [2]
The subject is from Book III of Ovid's Fasti , which had been published in Venice in 1497. [2] At the centre is a group of satyrs and bacchantes who make noises to get a swarm of bees to settle in the trunk of a hollow tree. From left and right, more companions of Bacchus join the event, including Silenus, who rides in from the right on an ass, visibly drunk and supported by satyrs and bacchantes. In the foreground to the right are Bacchus, leaning on a thyrsus , and Ariadne, who points at the wreath on the god's head. [3] To the upper left is a town and to the upper right are a steep hill and a forest. [1]
The art historian Erwin Panofsky interpreted the painting as a reflection of the "Epicurean evolutionism" present in the Latin writings of Lucretius and Vitruvius, which had been reintroduced to Renaissance audiences through Genealogia Deorum Gentilium by Boccaccio. The juxtaposition of the "pastoral civilisation" to the left and the "unmitigated wildness" to the right, according to Panofsky, symbolises the emergence of civilisation, in which the discovery of honey was considered an important step, commemorated through the eating and offering of honey cakes (liba) at Liberalia. [4] The art historian Dennis Geronimus has written that Panofsky's evolutionist interpretation should be taken with reservations, as its moral roots lie in religion, and the juxtaposition it is based on is "largely divorced from the painting itself". [4]
The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus is significantly better preserved than The Misfortunes of Silenus, with clearer colours and fewer over-painted sections. [2] Since 1937, it is in the collection of the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts. [1]
In Greek mythology, a satyr, also known as a silenus or silenos, and sileni (plural), is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exaggerated erection. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs, but, by the sixth century BC, they were more often represented with human legs. Comically hideous, they have mane-like hair, bestial faces, and snub noses and they always are shown naked. Satyrs were characterized by their ribaldry and were known as lovers of wine, music, dancing, and women. They were companions of the god Dionysus and were believed to inhabit remote locales, such as woodlands, mountains, and pastures. They often attempted to seduce or rape nymphs and mortal women alike, usually with little success. They are sometimes shown masturbating or engaging in bestiality.
In Greek mythology, Silenus was a companion and tutor to the wine god Dionysus. He is typically older than the satyrs of the Dionysian retinue (thiasos), and sometimes considerably older, in which case he may be referred to as a Papposilenus. Silen and its plural sileni refer to the mythological figure as a type that is sometimes thought to be differentiated from a satyr by having the attributes of a horse rather than a goat, though usage of the two words is not consistent enough to permit a sharp distinction.
In Greek mythology, Lotis was a nymph mentioned by Ovid.
In Ancient Greece a thyrsus or thyrsos was a wand or staff of giant fennel covered with ivy vines and leaves, sometimes wound with taeniae and topped with a pine cone, artichoke, fennel, or by a bunch of vine-leaves and grapes or ivy-leaves and berries, carried during Hellenic festivals and religious ceremonies. The thyrsus is typically associated with the Greek god Dionysus, and represents a symbol of prosperity, fertility, and hedonism similarly to Dionysus.
Piero di Cosimo, also known as Piero di Lorenzo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, who continued to use an essentially Early Renaissance style into the 16th century.
The Loves of the Gods is a monumental fresco cycle, completed by the Bolognese artist Annibale Carracci and his studio, in the Farnese Gallery which is located in the west wing of the Palazzo Farnese, now the French Embassy, in Rome. The frescoes were greatly admired at the time, and were later considered to reflect a significant change in painting style away from sixteenth century Mannerism in anticipation of the development of Baroque and Classicism in Rome during the seventeenth century.
Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci is an oil on canvas painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Piero di Cosimo, dating from about 1480 or 1490. It is in the Musée Condé in Chantilly, France.
Innocenzo Francucci, generally known as Innocenzo da Imola, was an Italian painter and draftsman.
Bacchus and Ariadne (1522–1523) is an oil painting by Titian. It is one of a cycle of paintings on mythological subjects produced for Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, for the Camerino d'Alabastro – a private room in his palazzo in Ferrara decorated with paintings based on classical texts. An advance payment was given to Raphael, who originally held the commission for the subject of a Triumph of Bacchus.
The Villa of the Mysteries is a well-preserved suburban ancient Roman villa on the outskirts of Pompeii, southern Italy. It is famous for the series of exquisite frescos in Room 5, which are usually interpreted as showing the initiation of a bride into a Greco-Roman mystery cult. These are now among the best known of the relatively rare survivals of Ancient Roman painting from the 1st century BC.
The Feast of the Gods is an oil painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, with substantial additions in stages to the left and center landscape by Dosso Dossi and Titian. It is one of the few mythological pictures by the Venetian artist. Completed in 1514, it was his last major work. It is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., which calls it "one of the greatest Renaissance paintings in the United States".
The Death of Procris, A Satyr mourning over a Nymph or simply A Mythological Subject are names given to an unsigned, undated panel painting in the National Gallery in London, United Kingdom, securely attributed to Piero di Cosimo. Its date is uncertain, and its subject has been a matter of dispute. The name The Death of Procris has been used since the 19th century, and is supposed to have been inspired by Ovid's tale of the death of Procris at the hands of her husband Cephalus, in Metamorphoses VII. The National Gallery has rejected this title since at least Cecil Gould's catalogue of 1951, since when it has preferred to describe the subject as "A Mythological Subject" or "A Satyr mourning over a Nymph".
Venus and Mars is a panel painting of about 1485 by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. It shows the Roman gods Venus, goddess of love, and Mars, god of war, in an allegory of beauty and valour. The youthful and voluptuous couple recline in a forest setting, surrounded by playful baby satyrs.
The Bacchanal of the Andrians or The Andrians is an oil painting by Titian. It is signed "TICIANUS F.[aciebat]" and is dated to 1523–1526.
The Forest Fire is a painting by Italian Renaissance painter Piero di Cosimo. The painting depicts a variety of frightened animals attempting to escape a forest fire. The painting has a lot of activity, at the center of which is the raging fire itself. One of the earliest landscape paintings of the Renaissance, it includes made up animals as well as real ones. It was inspired by Book 5 of Lucretius's On the Nature of Things.
The Feast of Venus is an oil on canvas painting by Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, created in 1635–1636, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. It is a fanciful depiction of the Roman festival Veneralia celebrated in honor of Venus Verticordia.
The Triumph of Bacchus is a painting by the Walloon artist Michaelina Wautier. It was painted between 1650 and 1656 and is one of Wautier's greatest works, as well as her largest. Based on classical texts, the picture shows a procession with the drunken god Bacchus at its centre, surrounded by other humans, satyrs, and animals. It is notable for its large number of nude male figures, something uncommon from a woman artist in this period.
The Bacchic Cassone was a 1505–1510 panel painting by Cima da Conegliano, produced as the front panel of a decorated cassone. It is now split into four portions, one in a private collection, two in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and one in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan.
Bacchanalia is a c. 1615 oil painting of Bacchus, Silenus, bacchantes and satyrs by Peter Paul Rubens. Originally painted on panel, it was transferred to canvas by A. Sidorov in 1892.
Bacchus is a marble sculpture by Italian artist Jacopo Sansovino, datable to 1515. It is held at the National Museum of the Bargello, in Florence.
Media related to Discovery of Honey by Piero di Cosimo at Wikimedia Commons