Io Bacce!: Ambiguity, Liminality, and the Potential for Self-Formation In Bacchus Explored by Carracci, Caravaggio, and Velázquez

Anna Gliwski

Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Carrasco, Magdalena

Area of Concentration

Art History with Latin Secondary Field

Abstract

The god Bacchus has been a popular figure in art since antiquity. In the wake of declining interest in the ancient world during the Late Renaissance, he was rendered a simplistic visualization of drunkenness rather than the multifaceted character he has the potential to be. In this thesis, I draw upon depictions of Bacchus by three Baroque artists: four works by Annibale Carracci, Caravaggio’s Young Sick Bacchus and the Uffizi Bacchus, as well as Velázquez’s Los Borrachos. These paintings display alternative and more complex approaches to the god. Bacchus possesses a level of ambiguity which lends itself to myriad creative interpretations. Thus, by using him as a subject, the artist is not bound to a more stylistically and iconographically rigid character. These works were done early in each artist’s career, suggesting a connection between Bacchus, the nature or source of creative inspiration, and the artist who is beginning to shape his professional identity. Considering this group of contemporary paintings together demonstrates that Carracci, Caravaggio, and Velázquez all sensed something deeper in Bacchus. They saw past his role as the god of drunkenness and into his ability to stir the inspiration and passion in both artists and their viewers. Their complex understanding of him allowed the artists to harness his ambiguity in order to convey artistic identity by inviting the viewer into a bacchic experience of their own making.

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