Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne, 1523-24

Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne, 1523-24, oil on canvas now atop board, 69-1/2 x 75 inches (National Gallery, London).
More free lessons at: http://www.khanacademy.org/video?v=bY...

Part of a mythological cycle painted by Titian and Giovanni Bellini and commissioned by Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara that includes The Feast of the Gods and the Andrians. Originally hung in the studiolo or Camerini d'Alabastro of the Duke's Ferranese castle.

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

http://smarthistory.org/titians-bacch...

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Closed Caption:

(piano playing)
Dr. Zucker: We're in the National
Gallery in London and we're
looking at a really large,
really important Renaissance
painting, an artist who is
Venetian, known simply at Titian.
Dr. Harris: Tiziano in Italian.
Dr. Zucker: That's right,
that's right. So this is ...
Dr. Harris: Bacchus and Ariadne.
Dr. Zucker: It tells the story of
Ariadne who's love, Theseus, had
just left her on the island of Naxos.
Dr. Harris: He abandoned her.
Dr. Zucker: You can see his ship
just on the horizon, on the extreme
left, to the left of her shoulder.
Dr. Harris: Bacchus who's riding
in a chariot lead by two cheetahs.
Bacchus, the God of Wine and
Intoxication followed by his revelers
kind of emerge in the diagonal
coming forward into the foreground.
Bacchus leaps out of his chariot
and apparently love at first sight.
Dr. Zucker: He's intoxicated with Ariadne.
Dr. Harris: She's initially a little
frightened of him, but promises
to turn her into a constellation.
Dr. Zucker: Which you can see above her
head in the upper left of the canvas,
that group, that almost
halo of eight stars.
Her pose is really complicated.
Presumably she had just been
mourning the loss of her lover and
is turned and transfixed by his gaze.
He is full of energy as he
literally flies out of the chariot,
that drape just wild behind him
and his foot supported by
nothing, suspended in midair.
You feel his weight as it just
flies over the edge of that chariot.
Dr. Harris: I'm struck as I
continue to look by the ways that
each figure embodies two opposing actions.
Ariadne moves forward but
also turns to the right.
He lurches forward toward Ariadne,
but also his arms move back
while his head and shoulders move forward.
Dr. Zucker: They were both
involved in doing something else
and had been so drawn to each other
so unexpectedly that there hands,
their arms are still
tracing their previous ...
Dr. Harris: Actions.
Dr. Zucker: ... intention. Yeah.
Dr. Harris: Even the figure
in the foreground, this
Bacchic reveler that we see
who's entwined with snakes, rather
reminiscent of the way [unintelligible]
the Ancient Greek sculpture,
even he is doing two things at
one time with his body, right?
He seems to be sort of
reaching back, moving forward,
there's all of this conflicting
movements to the bodies of the figures.
Dr. Zucker: This was a painting
that was originally created
for one of the members of the
d'Este family and Ferrara.
It would have hung in their
palace and it speaks to a man who
wanted to express his knowledge
of antiquity and of course to also
be a great patron of the Renaissance.
Dr. Harris: We see that thing
that we know, Venus [four]
which is the use of color;
those blues, the reds,
the pinks, the greens.
Dr. Zucker: Brilliant colors, absolutely.
Dr. Zucker: With a kind of
prismatic almost gem like quality,
a result of his glazing technique.
Dr. Harris: And the browns and
sort of earth tones on the right
corner where the Bacchic revelers
compared with the clarity of
those blues and reds on the left.
Dr. Zucker: Not only the contrast
of the actions of the figures, not
only in the contrast of colors,
as you've pointed out, but also
in the purity of the love that's
expressed between those two figures,
or at least Bacchus' love of
Ariadne and then just the partying
that's going on on the right.
Dr. Harris: It's true.
Dr. Harris: Animal behavior on the right.
Dr. Zucker: Absolutely.
(piano playing)