The Feast of Bacchus (The Triumph of Bacchus or Los borrachos)

Diego Velazquez

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Keywords: FeastBacchusTriumphBacchusborrachos

Work Overview

The Feast of Bacchus (The Triumph of Bacchus; The Drinkers; The Drunks; Los borrachos)
Velázquez - El Triunfo de Baco o Los Borrachos (Museo del Prado, 1628-29).jpg
Artist Diego Velázquez
Year 1628-1629
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 165 cm × 225 cm (65 in × 89 in)
Location Museo del Prado, Madrid


The Triumph of Bacchus (Greek title is Ο Θρίαμβος του Βάκχου) is a painting by Diego Velázquez, now in the Museo del Prado, in Madrid. It is popularly known as Los borrachos or The Drinkers (politely, also The Drunks).


Velázquez painted The Triumph of Bacchus after arriving in Madrid from Seville and just before his voyage to Italy. The work was painted for Philip IV, who paid Velázquez 100 ducats for it.[1] The painting shows Bacchus surrounded by drunks. In Madrid, Velázquez was able to study the king's collection of Italian paintings and was no doubt struck by the nudity in many paintings as well as the treatment of mythological subjects.


The Triumph of Bacchus has been described as the masterpiece of Velázquez's 1620s paintings.


In the work, Bacchus is represented as a person at the center of a small celebration, but his skin is paler than that of his companions, rendering him more easily recognizable. Unusually, the rest of the group, apart from the figure naked to the waist behind the god, are in the contemporary costume of poor people in 17th-century Spain. The work represents Bacchus as the god who rewards or gifts men with wine, temporarily releasing them from their problems. In Baroque literature, Bacchus was considered an allegory of the liberation of man from the slavery of daily life.


The scene can be divided in two halves. On the left, there is the very luminous Bacchus figure, his dominant but relaxed pose somewhat reminiscent of that of Christ in many Last Judgement scenes, who is often shown seated and naked to the waist. Bacchus and the character behind him are represented in the traditional loose robes used for depictions of classical myth. The idealization of the god's face is highlighted by the clear light which illuminates him in a more classicist style.[3] The right side, however, presents some drunkards, men of the streets that invite us to join their party, with a very Spanish atmosphere similar to José de Ribera in style. There is no idealization present in their large and worn-out faces, though the figure kneeling in front of the god is younger and better dressed than the others, with a sword and tall boots. The light which illuminates Bacchus is absent on this side; the figures are shown with chiaroscuro and have much darker skin.


In this work, Velázquez adopted a realist treatment of a mythological subject, a tendency he would pursue further during the following years.


There are various elements of naturalism in this work, such as the bottle and pitcher which appear on the ground close to the god's feet; Velázquez employed the contrast of the god's bright body to lend relief and texture to the bottle and pitcher, creating something akin to a still life. These jars are very similar to the ones which appear in paintings made by Velázquez during his period in Seville, and the combination of still life elements of naturalistic genre figures relates to the bodegon subjects he painted there.


The Triumph of Bacchus received a number of rather grand and elaborate idealized treatments in Renaissance art, of which Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne, then in the Spanish royal collection, was an imaginative variant. Usually Bacchus was processing in a chariot drawn by leopards, with a retinue of satyrs and revellers, including his guardian Silenus. The use of the title for Velázquez's painting is almost ironic given the very different treatment here.


One inspiration for Velázquez is Caravaggio's treatments of religious subjects combining central figures in traditional iconographical robes with subsidiary figures in contemporary dress, and Ribera's naturalistic portraits of figures from antiquity, sometimes depicted as beggars.[4] Entertainments hosted by Bacchus appear as an occasional subject in art from the Renaissance onwards, as one type of the wider subject of the Feast of the gods in art: around 1550 Taddeo Zuccari painted a large feast at the Wedding of Bacchus and Ariadne in fresco in the Villa Giulia, Rome,[5] Some paintings show Bacchus with revellers in contemporary modern dress, as in the Frangipane illustrated.[6]


Mark Wallinger argued that The Triumph of Bacchus prefigured Las Meninas and stated, "Velázquez presents us with a complexity of focal points. [...] The look [the two liggers on the left of Bacchus] direct at the viewer slices clean through 350 years in the most disconcerting way. [...] However one might describe them, we are made complicit in the meaning of the work."


Velázquez painted this picture of Bacchus surrounded by eight drinkers for Philip IV who hung it in his summer bedroom. The painting is not only unique in his oeuvre, but is very rare indeed in Spanish painting as a whole, which does not generally have the drinking scenes so familiar in Flemish and Netherlandish painting. Drunkenness was regarded in Spain as a contemptible vice and "borracho" (drunkard) was the most scathing of insults. At the royal court, it seems to have been considered highly entertaining to invite low-lifers from the comedy theatres and inebriate them for the amusement of the ladies. But what kind of a Wine God is this we see, crowning his followers with ivy, said to cool the heat of wine, and consorting with peasants who grin out of the painting and clearly find the spectator, that is to say the king, a very funny sight indeed? The authority of the god whose presence delights them lends them a sense of majesty as well. And in view of the delightful travesty of royal honours in which Bacchus is indulging, they too have turned the tables and are laughing in the faces of those who would laugh at them.


As only Caravaggio before him, Velázquez has portrayed Bacchus (or rather Dionysos) as the God of the mask, the theatre and disguise.


It was thought in the nineteenth century that this was a realistic scene showing a country festival, and the picture was given the title The Topers. The painting was damaged in the fire that destroyed the royal palace in Madrid in 1734, and the left half of the god's face has been much restored.


Documentation of payment received by Velázquez in July 1629 for an image of Bacchus painted at the king`s behest informs us of the work`s approximate date and identifies its intended recipient. This was shortly before the artist`s first visit to Italy, barely five years after he began working for the king and at a time when he had just met Rubens. During this period, he was specialized in portraiture, although he had recently completed a renowned history painting -The Expulsion of the Moors- and had considerable experience with religious and costumbrista scenes. This was his first attempt at depicting a mythological fable, and he did so with a palette, descriptive methods and human types that recall his earlier years in Seville, although here he combined them with significant formal innovations. These circumstances make The Drunkards a turning point, launching a new subject that would be present for the rest of the artist`s career. At the same time, this work draws heavily on Velázquez`s previous works. The presence of Bacchus allowed the painter to depict one of his first male nudes, and that figure dominates the composition thanks to the luminosity of his body and clothing. A nude satyr to the left raises a fine crystal goblet, drawing us into the world of fabulous stories and creatures while, on the right, a beggar and four men with dark-brown capes, weathered faces and lively expressions constitute an everyday, realistic and believable counterpoint. A young figure kneels before them to be crowned by the god.


As often occurs in Velázquez`s narrative works, this composition is steeped in an ambiguity that has led to considerable speculation about its deeper meaning. Attention has traditionally been drawn to the realistic rendering of the characters on the right, which has been read as a demystification of the classical fable, and even a mockery of Antiquity. More recently, however, an increasing number of scholars have emphasized the degree to which the nature of the Bacchic myth itself favors the combination of fabulous elements with everyday references. In that sense, the painting has been interpreted as an allegory of wine, which is not only able to cheer humans and induce non-rational states, but also to stimulate poetic creation, as was observed by numerous Spanish writers from Velázquez`s time. Perhaps that is why the crown that Bacchus places on the young man`s head is not of grape leaves, like his own, but of the ivy traditionally associated with poets. In any case, with The Drunkards, Velázquez demonstrated the degree to which the possibilities of a naturalist language surpass the limits of religious or costumbrista subject matter, making it adequate for representing mythological scenes. At the same time, this work is the first indication of the artist`s fondness for mixing classical fables and everyday contents, eschewing the idealized approach that had previously been customary in that genre (Text from Portús, J.: Fábulas de Velázquez. Mitología e Historia Sagrada en el Siglo de Oro, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2007, p. 313).