AFTER DIEGO RODRÍGUEZ DE SILVA Y VELÁZQUEZ | TRIUMPH OF BACCHUS

This painting is a 19th century copy after Velázquez's original Feast of Bacchus in the Museo del Prado, Madrid.¹ In Velázquez's first mythological painting, he combined the study of the male nude with a color palette and figural types drawn from his rougher genre paintings from his years in Seville. The unidealized figure at center looks directly at the viewer, inviting us to imagine ourselves in this fantastical scene, and has been interpreted as a satire on antiquity and classical learning. With this combination of classical fable and everyday, lower-class subjects, Velázquez demonstrated that naturalism could serve all subject matter, not only genre painting. Nineteenth-century artists were especially drawn to Velazquez's unidealized rendering of figures, which was paralleled in the works of contemporary artists like Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manet. 

1. Diego Velázquez, Feast of Bacchus, c. 1628-9, oil on canvas, 165 by 225 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid, inv. no. P001170.