The Wisdom of Bacchus: Emblematic, Iconographic and Literary Allusions in the Hermitage Painting by P. P. Rubens

Abstract

The painting “Bacchus” by Peter Paul Rubens (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) has frequently attracted the attention of both local and foreign researchers. In this article, we question the interpretation of the painting as a simple allegory of the autumn grape harvest and the celebration of production of young wine. Bacchanalian subjects since Antiquity have been loaded with additional meanings associated with regeneration and creative potentials. The latter aspect was picked up and developed by Renaissance artists. Rubens followed often that tradition. L. D. Davis saw in the Hermitage painting a metaphor of the creative method of the Flemish painter, who trusted intuitive impulses more than rigid rules. We share partially this point of view, but we propose to consider the named work in a broader sense than that scholar did. It seems to us that Rubens presented in “Bacchus” his allegorical self-portrait, emphasizing his love of life and his philosophical emancipation. Thus, the Flemish artist expressed his opposition to moralizing and short-sighted opinions in contemporary culture and his desire to return to the breadth of the Renaissance vision. As a consequence, the allusions contained in his painting to “The Andrians” by Titian, some emblems by Andrea Alciato, as well as the new Rubens interpretation of Comus, an ancient character, which John Milton used in his didactic mask a few years before the creation of Hermitage work, — don’t seem accidental. The portly Bacchus in the painting is presented as the lord of earthly diversity and boundless abundance, at the same time he is a wise mentor-judge, indicating how to properly handle all this wealth open to human race. The concept of the boon as the right disposal of freedom and desires, reflected in iconographic system of the Hermitage painting, fits with the ideas of Plato’s dialogue “Feast”.