Bacchus (Michelangelo)

Bacchus by Michelangelo (1496-1497)

Bacchus (1496-1497) is a statue of marble by the Italian Renaissance - sculptor Michelangelo . The statue is eight feet tall and depicts Bacchus (Dionysus), the Greco-Roman god of wine , in a wobbly pose that suggests drunkenness. It was commissioned by Raffaele Riario , a cardinal and collector of ancient sculpture, but was rejected by him and instead bought by Jacopo Galli , a banker of Riario and a friend of Michelangelo. Together with the Pietà , the Bacchus is one of only two surviving sculptures from the artist's first creative period in Rome . Today the sculpture is in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence ( Sala di Michelangelo ).

shape

Bacchus is shown with rolling eyes, his swaying body almost falling from the rock on which he is standing. Behind him sits a faun eating a grape that has slipped from Bacchus' left hand. With a swollen chest and body, the figure represents (according to Giorgio Vasari ) “both the slimness of a young man and the fleshiness and curves of a woman.” And his androgyny has often been emphasized. The inspiration for this work seems to be a description from the Naturalis historia of Pliny the Elder . There a lost bronze sculpture by Praxiteles is described, depicting “Bacchus, drunkenness and a satyr ”. The feeling of insecurity (instability) based on the high center of gravity can be found in numerous later works by the artist, for example in the case of David and the figures in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel .

Drawing of Bacchus in the sculpture garden by Jacopo Galli, Maarten van Heemskerck , approx. 1533–1536.

Bacchus wears a wreath made of grapes and ivy leaves (the plant was sacred to the god). In his right hand he holds a goblet with wine and in his left the hide of a tiger, an animal that is connected to God through his "love of the grape" (according to Michelangelo's biographer Ascanio Condivi ) stand The hand that held the goblet had broken off and the penis chiseled off before Maarten van Heemskerck saw the statue in the 1530s. Only the chalice was restored in the early 1550s. The mutilation could also have been done to give the figure the appearance of greater age, especially since it was placed from the beginning between a real ancient torso and fragmentary Roman reliefs in Jacopo Galli's Roman Garden. Such concessions to “classical” sensibilities did not convince Percy Bysshe Shelley of the loyalty of the work to the “spirit and meaning of Bacchus”. He wrote that “it looks drunken, brutal, and narrow-minded, and has an expression of dissoluteness the most revolting.” The art historian Johannes Wilde summarizes the reactions as follows: "in short ... it is not the image of a god."

history

The statue was commissioned for the garden by Cardinal Raffaele Riario. Riario originally wanted to add to his collection of classical sculptures. But Riario refused it and around 1506 it found its way into the collection of Jacopo Galli, who worked as a banker for both the Cardinal and Michelangelo and who designed a similar sculpture garden at the Palazzo della Cancelleria . There it can be verified for the first time through a drawing by Maarten van Heemskerck (1533/36). The statue was acquired for the Medici in 1572 and brought to Florence. The hand was replaced by a later sculptor.

Individual evidence

↑ In the account books of Baldassare and Giovanni Balducci , the bankers of Cardinal Raffaele Riario , it can be seen that the work was carried out between the summer of 1496 and the summer of 1497. S. a. P. 93 by: Michael Hirst: Michelangelo in Rome: an altarpiece and the 'Bacchus', In: The Burlington Magazine. 123 Oct 1981: 581-593.
^ Museo del Bargello: il San Giorgio di Donatello e il Bacco di Michelangelo. Retrieved September 12, 2018 .
↑ MUSEO NAZIONALE DEL BARGELLO. Retrieved September 12, 2018 .
↑ "both the slenderness of a young man and the fleshiness and roundness of a woman"
^ Luba Freedman: Michelangelo's Reflections on Bacchus. In: Artibus et Historiae. 24, No. 47 2003: 121-135. The author notes that the Bacchus was often referred to as an antique during the 15th century .
↑ Hirst, Dunkerton 1994: 75 n.27.
^ Leonard Barkan: Unearthing the Past: Archeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture. New Haven / London 1999: 201-05. Barkan writes that Michelangelo worked as a forger of antiques and that Bacchus was an ambivalent work that was designed to "lure the viewer into indeterminacy as to whether it was old or modern." (To tease the viewer with uncertainties as to whether it was ancient or modern).
↑ The long tradition of negative reactions to Bacchus is presented in the notes on Giorgio Vasari: La Vita di Michelangelo… , edited by Paola Barocchi, Milan 1962: II: 62-67.
↑ in letter ... it is not the image of a god. Johannes Wilde: Michelangelo: Six Lectures. Oxford University Press 1978: 33.
↑ Michelangelo's biographer, Ascanio Condivi, writes on Michelangelo's direct instruction, but incorrectly, that Riario never commissioned anything and ascribes the commission to Galli; However, documents that were discovered in 1981 corrected the assignment: Hirst, Dunkerton 1994: Appendix C "Cardinal Riario and the 'Bacchus'".
↑ Freedman 2003: 124.
↑ The sketchbook is in Berlin. Ralph Lieberman: Regarding Michelangelo's Bacchus. In: Artibus et Historiae. 22, No. 43, 2001: 65-74, p. 66 fig. 2; Lieberman analyzes the “almost brutal realism” of the sculpture and the “flawlessly controlled disequilibrium” (flawlessly controlled disequilibrium, p. 67) that reveals itself when walking around the sculpture.

literature

Malcolm Bull: The Mirror of the Gods: Classical Mythology in Renaissance Art . London: Penguin 2005.
James Hall: Michelangelo and the Reinvention of the Human Body . London: Chatto & Windus 2005.
Michael Hirst, Jill Dunkerton: Making and Meaning: The Young Michelangelo . Yale University Press, New Haven and London 1994.
John Pope-Hennessy : Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture . London: Phaidon 1996. Catalog volume, p. 9.
John Addington Symonds . The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti . Project Gutenberg
Ilona Wolff: The Bacchus by Michelangelo. Aspects of the Paragon: or A Contest with Antiquity. Saarbrücken: AV Akademikerverlag 2016. Online resource (publisher) ISBN 978-3-639-87262-0
Christin Bartz: Bacchus in the sculpture of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque. Munich: GRIN Verlag GmbH 2014. Online resource (pdf) (publisher) ISBN 978-3-656-70372-3
Gustav Schörghofer: From Bacchus to Pietà: Michelangelo as a stone sculptor. In: Voices of the Time. Freiburg, Br., Herder - 232.2014 = 139 (2014), 2, pp. 75-85. ISSN 0039-1492
Sergio Risaliti, Francesco Vossilla; Photographs by Serge Domingie: Il Bacco di Michelangelo: il dio della spensieratezza e della condanna. Florence: Maschietto 2007. [tandem; 1] ISBN 978-88-88967-83-7
Paola Barocchi: Il bacco di Michelangelo. In: Lo specchio del Bargello; 8 : Michelangelo, Buonarroti, 1475–1564 [Ill.] Florence: Museo Nazionale del Bargello 1982
Constance Gibbons Lee: Gardens and Gods: Jacopo Galli, Michelangelo's “Bacchus”, and their art historical settings. Providence, RI, Brown Univ., Diss., 1981.
Karolina Lanckorońska (1898–2002): Ancient elements in Michelangelo's Bacchus and in his depictions of David. Lwów: National Inst. Ossoliński, 1938.

Web links

Commons : Michelangelo's Bacchus - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

[1] In the account books of Baldassare and Giovanni Balducci , the bankers of Cardinal Raffaele Riario , it can be seen that the work was carried out between the summer of 1496 and the summer of 1497. S. a. P. 93 by: Michael Hirst: Michelangelo in Rome: an altarpiece and the 'Bacchus', In: The Burlington Magazine. 123 Oct 1981: 581-593.

[2] Museo del Bargello: il San Giorgio di Donatello e il Bacco di Michelangelo. Retrieved September 12, 2018 .

[3] MUSEO NAZIONALE DEL BARGELLO. Retrieved September 12, 2018 .

[4] "both the slenderness of a young man and the fleshiness and roundness of a woman"

[5] Luba Freedman: Michelangelo's Reflections on Bacchus. In: Artibus et Historiae. 24, No. 47 2003: 121-135. The author notes that the Bacchus was often referred to as an antique during the 15th century .

[6] Hirst, Dunkerton 1994: 75 n.27.

[7] Leonard Barkan: Unearthing the Past: Archeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture. New Haven / London 1999: 201-05. Barkan writes that Michelangelo worked as a forger of antiques and that Bacchus was an ambivalent work that was designed to "lure the viewer into indeterminacy as to whether it was old or modern." (To tease the viewer with uncertainties as to whether it was ancient or modern).

[8] The long tradition of negative reactions to Bacchus is presented in the notes on Giorgio Vasari: La Vita di Michelangelo… , edited by Paola Barocchi, Milan 1962: II: 62-67.

[9] tter ... it is not the image of a god. Johannes Wilde: Michelangelo: Six Lectures. Oxford University Press 1978: 33.

[10] Michelangelo's biographer, Ascanio Condivi, writes on Michelangelo's direct instruction, but incorrectly, that Riario never commissioned anything and ascribes the commission to Galli; However, documents that were discovered in 1981 corrected the assignment: Hirst, Dunkerton 1994: Appendix C "Cardinal Riario and the 'Bacchus'".

[11] Freedman 2003: 124.

[12] The sketchbook is in Berlin. Ralph Lieberman: Regarding Michelangelo's Bacchus. In: Artibus et Historiae. 22, No. 43, 2001: 65-74, p. 66 fig. 2; Lieberman analyzes the “almost brutal realism” of the sculpture and the “flawlessly controlled disequilibrium” (flawlessly controlled disequilibrium, p. 67) that reveals itself when walking around the sculpture.