酒神醉京都

#86040

36″ X 48″     oc

24″x32″/12″x16″     Print

• Caravaggio: “Bacchus Adolescent,” 1592. Ufizi, Florence
• Kunisada: “Shimaigedekiso (from ‘the 32 Contemporary Marks’)”
  “A Woman of Edo,” decoration on paper for a fan by Dansendo Ibaya

Bacchus – Roman god of wine, always a beautiful youth with black eyes and long hair entwined with ivy vines. He has Etruscan, Assyrian, Greek, Hebrew, Nordic, Indian, Persian, German, and Gaulish counterparts. In Chinese culture, he is known as Jos.For the first time in European painting, Caravaggio (ca. 1570 – 1610) used the Bacchus theme as a pretext to gather natural products and daily objects and make them major players in a scene surrounding an adolescent.Chen has taken young Bacchus to Kyoto, Japan, and turned him loose to be amused by two Kunisada women.
God of wine? Where are the drinking glasses? Has this stage passed? Is Bacchus ready for headier adventures?

In Chen’s picture, the natural products are the fruit and leaves, the daily objects of these two geishas. The bowl of fruit, in one style or another, is an icon that Chen uses in many of his paintings as symbols of nourishment, good life, bounties, satisfaction, and spiritual as well as physical fulfillment.

by Lawrance Jeppson