Bacchanal with a Wine Vat (c. 1475) 2
Mantegna invites us to the wildest party in ancient Rome with this chaotic Bacchanal scene. At the center, a reveler has clearly overindulged, slumping unconscious over a massive wine vat while satyrs and bacchantes continue the festivities around him. You can see grapes being harvested and wine being poured, while exhausted cherubs sleep on the ground below. As a pioneer of Italian engraving, Mantegna used precise, scratchy lines to give these figures the muscular weight of classical Roman sculptures, capturing the messy reality of a mythological binge.
- Technique
- Engraving
- Material
- Paper
Views: 4