The Young Bacchus
MICHELANGELO MERISI DA CARAVAGGIO, 1597
Caravaggio’s paintings are known for their dramatic lighting and uncompromising realism. In contrast to the artificiality and false perfection that had defined Mannerism, Caravaggio’s pioneering Baroque style featured homely subjects in harsh contrasts of light and shadow (called chiaroscuro, or in its more extreme form, tenebrism), with every blemish and vice prominently displayed. The Young Bacchus is a fine example of his brutally honest approach.
Caravaggio had already painted one portrait of Bacchus (the Roman god of drunkenness and the Greek equivalent of Dionysus) in which the god looked hungover and suspiciously like Caravaggio himself. It’s a reasonable guess, based on the recurrence of Bacchus in his work, that Caravaggio identified himself in part with the god. In fact, if you ever visit this painting in person, you can see a tiny reflection of Caravaggio in the carafe to the left.
Here, Bacchus is looking a little less green with nausea than he did in Caravaggio’s earlier Sick Bacchus, but he still appears fairly intoxicated as he tilts a glass of wine toward the viewer. Leaning lazily on some cushions in a provocative posture, it’s hard to imagine that this is an immortal god we’re looking at. The rotting fruit before him reminds us that life is brief for mere humans, but that Bacchus is spared the ordeal of death and decay. In a time and place when Christian imagery dominated the general subject matter of painting, Caravaggio defied convention one more way by representing a pagan theme. —DDG