Bacchus god of wine
In classical antiquity ceremonies celebrating the wine god Dionysus or Bacchus were the scene of orgiastic rites. In a state of ecstasy the followers of the cult of Bacchus, known as Bacchantes, carried out the most heinous acts that included tearing wild animals limb from limb.
The painter dressed as Bacchus on a barrel, as portrayed by Philips Koninck, is in fact a later depiction of the Bacchus cult, which had its origins in ancient Greece. The worship of Bacchus as the god of wine was the subject of a number of
seventeenth-century paintings.
Dionysus and Bacchus
Dionysus was born from the thigh of Zeus - the supreme ruler of the gods - having been sewn into it when his terrestrial mother Semele died in pregnancy. After his birth Dionysus, or Bacchus as he was also called in ancient Greece, was brought up by the
nymphs who lived on the mythical Mount Nysa, where he spent his childhood and planted the first grapevine. On reaching adulthood he travelled through Asia Minor, the Middle East and the Mediterranean, teaching people the art of winegrowing. On the island
of Naxos he encountered Ariadne - the daughter of the Cretan King Minos - whom he took for his wife. Dionysus was not only the god of wine, but also of fertility in general.
Ecstatic bacchantes
Chiefly associated with women, the worship of Dionysus or Bacchus took place every two years in the winter months, when the bacchantes took off to the mountains. Once beyond the reach of their men folk, they were inspired to ecstatic frenzy, drinking
excessive quantities of wine and dancing wildly to the clashing of cymbals and the pounding of their long staffs. Dressed in flowing white robes, their hair hanging loose and a deer skin draped round their shoulders, they whirled in the dance with burning
torches and poisonous serpents.
These orgiastic rites provided the theme of The Bacchae by the Greek tragic dramatist Euripides. The drama reaches its climax when the frenzied Theban Queen Agave tears her own son Pentheus to pieces. Although Euripides deliberately emphasised these
events for dramatic effect, other sources reveal that at the pitch of their ecstasy the bacchantes were driven to acts of appalling savagery, which explains why the cult was suppressed by the Roman Senate.
An interest in the cult remained however. Jan van Neck’s large picture at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden is a seventeenth-century variation of a bacchanal, although here the priestesses are offering a sacrifice not to Bacchus but to Pan, the
god of woods. Even today a fascination for the Bacchic cult survives, recently reflected in the American writer Donna Tart’s highly successful book The Secret History (1992), which tells the story of four students who, under the influence of a zealous
teacher and intoxicated by drink, drugs and sleeplessness, reenact Bacchic rites, which end in the murder of an innocent farmer.
Bacchus in art
From the Renaissance on, Bacchus and Bacchic feasts form a recurrent theme in Western art. The god himself is usually depicted as a slim youth crowned with a wreath of vineleaves or grapes, thus standing out from his retinue led by the old drunkard
Silenus accompanied by satyrs - goat-footed, horned human figures. With his goat-like face and rough hairy hoofs, Pan the god of nature is also associated with the worship of Bacchus. Pan and satyrs, along with goats, personify sensual lust. In the
seventeenth-century, representations of Bacchus were highly prized for their playful erotic character and were not regarded as obscene because of their reference to Greek mythology. Suggestive eroticism from classical antiquity was tolerated, as was
nudity in pastoral pictures.
Innocent bacchanals
Bacchantes - depictions of priestesses of Bacchus, the god of the grape-vine - gave rise to bacchanals which portray feasts in honour of Bacchus in a more general way. Jan van Neck’s large picture in Dresden is a true bacchante complete with priestesses.
These female devotees of Bacchus are missing in Putti and Satyr with a Goat by the same painter. Nonetheless all the figures - wood gods, putti, satyrs - are mythological and are seen riding on the goat of Lust or otherwise engaged in Bacchic rites.
Depictions of satyrs and cloven-hoofed beasts setting upon innocent nymphs in woods were extremely popular in the seventeenth century, and examples are found in painted grisailles until the late eighteenth century.
The Bentvueghels, by contrast, did not reenact any specific Bacchic rites. They were simply ordinary seventeenth-century folk who banded together for merriment - a bacchanal, or drinking bout - in honour of the wine god Bacchus. In the seventeenth
century the word bacchanal was used in a more general sense. A bacchanal of the gods refers to a banquet of the gods, and has little to do with ancient Bacchic rites.