Bacchus and Ariadne

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

National Gallery of Art

A man and woman are surrounded by six pudgy children, some with wings, against a deep landscape in this square painting. At the center of the composition, the man, Bacchus, sits astride a wine barrel, which is about half his height. Bacchus has tanned, peachy skin, and is nude except for a claret-purple cloth draped across his groin. He wears a crown of grapevines with gold and purple fruit and palm-sized leaves. A staff topped with grapevines leans across one splayed leg, and he holds a shallow bowl in his left hand, to our right. With his other hand, he lifts a delicate gold circlet lined with tiny, bright stars over the woman, Ariadne. He smiles down at her as she reclines next to the barrel, to our left. Ariadne has ash-white, pale skin with flushed cheeks. She looks away from Bacchus, up and to our left, with large brown eyes and her full lips closed. She leans on one elbow near the barrel so her legs extend to our left. A few stems of wheat are tucked into her blond hair. She is nude except for a gold-colored cloth over her groin and a cameo on a gold band around her upper arm. She holds flowers and more wheat in the crook of her elbow, which rests near a tall urn, and touches a grapevine and bunch of grapes that drape over the urn with the other hand. Two putto, one with wings visible, hover behind her right shoulder, to our left. Another child-like putto drinks wine from a rope-wrapped bottle behind Bacchus’s barrel, to our right. A putto holds a round tray and another stands astride a cheetah, who lies in front of the barrel. This final putto holds up a vine with golden grapes and more grapevines are next to the tray. We are separated from the scene by painted architectural features meant to resemble carved white stone. The cheetah’s backside dips over a step that parallels the bottom edge of the canvas. Imaginary creatures in the lower corners have the bodies of large cats, chests with women’s breasts, long necks, curling ears, and long-snouted dog’s faces. Tall, brown, leaf-like forms rising along each side of the painting are wrapped with gold ribbons. Stone molding curls into the scene from the upper corners like parentheses, and the innermost scrolling ends meet at the top center. One more putto, also with wings, leans against the volute to our left, holding up flowers with both hands. Most of the putti have pale or rosy skin and dark blond hair, except for the one standing over the cheetah, who has brown skin and dark brown hair. Tucked into the scene in the lower left, just past the imaginary creature there, another pale-skinned person with a long nose, pointed chin, and the suggestion of jowls is shown from the waist up, looking toward Ariadne. This person has short dark hair and wears a black garment and a square hat in the shape of a white stone castle. A dark green hill rises behind this person, and a satyr, a man with goat’s legs and horns, walks alongside a donkey on which another pale-skinned child rides. There are white buildings with brown roofs in the distance in front of rocky, powder-blue mountains along the horizon. Puffy white clouds tower against the ice-blue sky above.