Bacchanal of the Andrians (Bacchinal at Andros)

Bacchanal of the Andrians by Titian depicts a group of Andrian people drinking from the river of wine on the mythical island of Andros.  The painting was commissioned by Alfonso d'Este, the duke of Ferrara at the time, as part of a collection that would be put in his studio.  Titian's painting was placed in the same room as Giovanni Bellini's Feast of the Gods, who was Titian's former teacher.  Since the two great artists were never on good terms, Titian took the opportunity to upstage his teacher by depicting a similar theme and displaying his superiority in as many ways as possible.[1]

Titian paints his image with vibrant warm colors and darker cool colors.  The one exception to this is the color of the sky in some areas and a woman's dress, which are both a light shade of blue. The painting has a vast amount of contrast across the canvas to create contrast. The work is set in a naturalistic setting with trees, rolling hills, deep blue water, and a river of wine flowing in the fore ground. The first figure that the viewer encounters is a nude woman reclining on the ground with her head tilted back. This woman is partially clothed in a flowing, vibrant white cloth that flows naturally in the traditional Renaissance style. This woman is supposed to personify loneliness and feelings of abandonment as she reclines, separate from the rest of the figures in the painting. The viewers eye will then move to the group of Andrians by the trees posed in various positions and clothed to different degrees. The people in the picture are shown donning clothing colored in deep reds, light blues, glistening orange, white, or wearing no clothing at all.  All of the garments that the Andrians are wearing are flowing similarly to the woman that is seen in the fore ground of the work.  Most of the men seen standing around the group of women are nude or mostly nude. The baby that stands in the middle of all of the drunken adults stands near the center of the work, urinating into the river of wine.  Lying on the ground in front of the women in the large group is a small piece of parchment. This paper is inscribed with a fragment of a music set that was designed to be sung by a group of people starting at different times.[2]  This gives us an insight on Renaissance drinking songs from the time period.  The background that Titian created is complex, containing some of the most meaningful pieces of the work.  On a hill in the background is a man with a snow white beard who seems to be lying on the hill surrounded by reeds, too drunk to be with the rest of the Andrians.  The man is in fact a personification of the river of wine.[3] The ocean that spans to the left with a boat on top of it sailing over the horizon.  The sky is a mix of gray, dark blue, light blue, white and black, almost like there is a storm waiting to happen.  This represents the dark future that the Andrians are moving towards.  Titian painted this piece with the figures in a drunken stupor so that they can celebrate drunkeness and human desire.

Titian

Bertos, Rigas N. "A Short Note on the "Bacchanal of the Andrians"." Mitteilungen Des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 20, no. 3 (1976): 407-10. Accessed October 21, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27652414.

Bertos, Rigas N. "Some Remarks on TITIAN and BELLINI at Ferrara." RACAR: Revue D'art Canadienne / Canadian Art Review 2, no. 2 (1975): 49-54. Accessed October 21, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42630093.

Smith, Gertrude P. "The Canon in Titian's Bacchanal." Renaissance News 6, no. 3/4 (1953): 52-56. Accessed October 21, 2020. doi:10.2307/2857210.

Titian, ca. 1488-1576. 1518-9. Bacchanal at Andros. Place: Museo del Prado. https://library.artstor.org/asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822000638443.

Alfonso d'Este

1518-1519

Darien Sansosti

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193 x 175cm

Oil painting on cavas

Museo del Prado; Madrid, Spain