| 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, 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 are always 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. The plural sileni refers 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. Silenus presides over other daemones and is related to musical creativity, prophetic ecstasy, drunken joy, drunken dances and gestures.
In Greek mythology, Lotis was a nymph mentioned by Ovid.
Piero di Cosimo, also known as Piero di Lorenzo, was an Italian painter of the Renaissance.
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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.
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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. At the time of Raphael's death in 1520, only a preliminary drawing was completed and the commission was then handed to Titian. In the case of Bacchus and Ariadne, the subject matter was derived from the Roman poets Catullus and Ovid.
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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 Resting Satyr or Leaning Satyr, also known as the Satyr anapauomenos is a statue type generally attributed to the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles. Some 115 examples of the type are known, of which the best known is in the Capitoline Museums.
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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".
The Sarcophagus of the Triumph of Bacchus is a monumental ancient Roman stone sarcophagus of Carrara marble. The style and high quality of its reliefs and the choice of Bacchus triumphing over India as its subject suggests it came from a Roman workshop and possibly dates to the start of the 3rd century, from the reign of Caracalla to that of Elagabalus.
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