Saturday, July 21, 2018

Ariadne Imagined in the Seventeenth Century

Pier Francesco Mola
Bacchus and Ariadne
ca. 1647-50
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Pier Francesco Mola
Bacchus and Ariadne
ca. 1647-48
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Sebastiano Ricci
Bacchus and Ariadne
ca. 1691-94
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Anonymous copyist after Jacopo Tintoretto
Bacchus and Ariadne
17th century
oil on canvas
Government Art Collection, London

Names of Children

In early morning, when the sun
is vague and birds are furious
names of children float
like smoke through the empty room:
Ariadne, dark as seal skin
Ian, fair-skinned baby
Marina    Terrence    Alex    John

after dinner    pulled back from
talk of war and morals
their names glow like light
around a candle –
Jack, my rampant youngest son
Celia, my daughter who sings

but no children call from other rooms
no soft faces turn to kiss
each guest goodnight
or whisper that stars are giant's eyes
there is only the slow still wait
through the opaque night
for morning, and more names.

– Rachel Sherwood (who died in an L.A. car crash at age 25 in 1979)

Antoine Coypel
Bacchus and Ariadne on the Isle of Naxos
ca. 1693
oil on canvas
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Antoine Coypel and Gérard Audran
Bacchus and Ariadne on the Isle of Naxos
1693
etching, engraving
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Bernard Lens
Bacchus and Ariadne
ca. 1690
mezzotint
Yale Center for British Art

Anonymous Italian artist of the Bolognese school
Bacchus and Ariadne
17th century
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Jacob Jordaens
Bacchus discovering Ariadne
ca. 1645-50
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Luca Giordano after Titian
The Triumph of Bacchus (approaching Ariadne)
ca. 1674-77
oil on canvas
Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry

Luca Giordano after Titian
The Triumph of Bacchus (approaching Ariadne)
ca. 1682
oil on canvas
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire

from Bacchus and Ariadne

Suddenly from a wood his dancers rush,
Leaping like wines that from the bottle gush;
Bounding they come, and twirl, and thrust on high
Their thyrsuses, as they would rouse the sky;
And hurry here and there, in loosened bands,
And trill above their heads their cymballed hands:
Some, brawny males, that almost show from far
Their forceful arms, cloudy and muscular;
Some, smoother females, who have nevertheless
Strong limbs, and hands, to fling with and to press;
And shapes, which they can bend with heavenward glare,
And tortuous wrists, and backward streaming hair.
A troop of goat-foot shapes came trampling after.

– Leigh Hunt (1819)

Giovanni Francesco Romanelli
Bacchus and Ariadne
before 1662
drawing
British Museum

Reinier van Persyn
Busts of Bacchus and Ariadne after the antique
ca. 1640
engraving
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Anonymous artist working in England
Bacchus and Ariadne
17th century
oil on canvas
Maidstone Museum and Bentlif Art Gallery, Kent