Audio Stop 315

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Six women, eight men, two satyrs, and one child gather in pairs and trios in a loose row that spans the width of this nearly square painting. They are set within a landscape with craggy rocks, cliffs, and trees. Most of the people face us, and the men, women, and child have pale skin. The two satyrs have men’s torsos and furry goat’s legs, and they have darker, olive complexions. Most of the men wear voluminous, knee-length togas wrapped in short robes in shades of white, topaz blue, grass green, coral orange, or rose pink. Most of the women wear long, dress-like garments in tones of shell pink, apricot orange, or lapis blue over white sleeves. For all but one woman, their garments have fallen off one shoulder to reveal a round, firm breast. Several objects are strewn on the rocky, dirt ground in front of the group, including a wide, wooden bucket with a piece of paper affixed to its front to our right, a glass goblet, a pitchfork, a large blue and white ceramic dish filled with grapes and small yellow fruits, and an overturned cup near the center. Cliff-like, craggy rocks rise steeply behind the group to our left, filling much of the sky opposite a tall grove of leafy, dark green trees to our right. A few puffy white clouds float across the vivid blue sky. The slip of paper on the barrel has been inscribed, “joannes bellinus venetus p MDXIIII.”

Giovanni Bellini and Titian

The Feast of the Gods, 1514/1529

West Building, Main Floor - Gallery 17

In this illustration of a scene from the Roman poet Ovid’s Fasti, the gods, with Jupiter, Neptune, and Apollo among them, revel in a forest setting, eating and drinking, attended by nymphs and satyrs. The lustful Priapus, god of fertility, stealthily lifts the gown of the sleeping nymph Lotis, as seen on the right. According to the tale, he will be foiled by the braying of Silenus’s ass a moment later.

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DAVID BROWN:
“The Feast of the Gods was completed by Giovanni Bellini, the dean of 15th-century Venetian painters, only two years before his death, when he was in his mid-eighties. On the wooden tub at the far right, you can see an illusionistic scrap of paper with his signature, and the date – 1514.”

“The subject is a bacchanal, really a kind of orgy. For Bellini, it was a radical departure from the madonnas, saints and portraits he had focused on throughout his long career. But risqué mythological themes had become very important to the younger generation of Renaissance painters, many of whom had been his pupils. When Bellini took up this subject, he was in effect becoming their rival.”

“Bellini chose to represent the bacchanal as a kind of picnic out in nature in which the Olympian gods drink and eat and nod off. They include Mercury lounging at the left with his helmet and staff, and just to the right, Jupiter, ruler of the gods. He’s identified by an imperial eagle. There are some mildly titillating moments – for example, in the lower right, the lustful Priapus slyly lifts the gown of the sleeping nymph Lotis.”

“But his attempt will be foiled by the braying of the ass at the far left – which will wake up the entire assembly. In a moment, Priapus will be ridiculed, and before he flees in embarrassment, he will demand the yearly sacrifice of an ass to make up for his humiliation.”

“The elderly Bellini may not have felt entirely comfortable with the erotic overtones of his subject matter. But the subject is almost secondary because he painted it in such a beautiful way. In fact, I’ve seen many visitors stop to admire the glorious symphony of pinks, whites, blues, and yellows, the lush landscape, and the ravishing still-life details here – such as the bowl of fruit at the feet of the gods, the various wreaths that crown their hair or, at the left, the wine pouring from a keg into a clear glass jug. People walk off in awe without paying attention to the meaning of the picture at all.”

“The landscape behind the figures was altered: in Bellini’s original work, the trees over on the right extended all the way across the canvas. Years later, his brilliant pupil Titian replaced many of them with the craggy mountain that now looms at the left, perhaps to suit other pictures hanging nearby, three of which he painted himself. So this masterpiece is really a dual effort: a figure painting by Bellini, and a landscape largely by Titian.”

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