The art of drinking …in paintings

DYCK, Sir Anthony van (attributed by)
Drunken Silenus supported by Satyrs

The art of drinking …
in paintings

The annunciation, the nativity, the portraiture of aristocrats and monarchs, even the nude – art
historians have devoted weighty studies to them all.
But the representation of drinking in the visual arts usually elicits sniggers rather than scholarly
contemplation.
The Romans were in thrall to Bacchus (as they called Dionysus). He often appears, with or
without his uproarious retinue, in sculptures, wall paintings, and mosaics.
With the revival of antiquity’s pagan worldview during the Renaissance, drink became an
important subject for artists once again. Before he created his spellbinding Pieta, Michelangelo
sculpted a lewd and tipsy Bacchus.
In The Andrians, in the Prado, Titian returned to this drinking theme, representing a group of
revellers dancing and lying beside a river of wine on the island of Andros.
Almost a century later, Rubens painted his infamous Silenus, the bald, bearded, pot-bellied tutor
and companion of Dionysus, stumbling along with drunken difficulty. In London’s National
Gallery, a similarly corpulent and gloriously wasted Silenus slumps, supported by satyrs, in a
related canvas, possibly executed in Rubens’s studio...

Ancient Greek religion even devoted an entire deity to drinking, Dionysos, the god of wine, ecstasy,
and fertility. He himself had a gaggle of lush friends and followers.
The drunkest of them all was Silenus, who was mythologized to possess valuable prophetic
powers, despite the fact that he was almost always depicted as so drunk he couldn’t stand
straight.
In Roman culture, these gods of became Bacchus and Silvanus, who were depicted much like their
Greek counterparts, but became known for even worse debauchery.

1620
Oil on canvas, 133.5 x 197 cm
National Gallery, London

(detail)
1620

Drunken Silenus supported by Satyrs (detail)
1620
In this majestic baroque painting, he is so drunk he
can't stand up straight. As satyrs gladly support his
weight, his massive body slumps in a rollicking
landscape of sweat, wrinkles and abandon. He is
utterly happy in his humiliation, at one with nature
itself as he partakes of the grape, lost in visions of
the divine that come to him in his drunken state.
The painting is thought to have been executed in
Rubens' studio. The sky and landscape are probably
by Jan Wildens, and the foliage and fruit by Frans
Snijders. The design of the figures may have been
executed by a member of the studio, possibly Van
Dyck, and then reworked by Rubens himself. The
composition derives in part from a work of a similar
subject by Rubens, 'The March of Silenus' (Munich,
Alte Pinakothek).

TIZIANO Vecellio
Bacchanal of the Andrians
Drunkenness has never looked as beautiful as it does in Titian's painting of a wine-fuelled party in the
open air.
These drinkers conduct their antics with a magical grace. The dancers do not fall over. The wine jug
balanced on a man's hand does not go flying. Wine has freed everyone from inhibition and made them
amorous.
In vino veritas. These drinkers do not yell at each other, vomit or pass out. Instead they all seem to be
falling in love. One woman lies in a naked ecstasy as wine unleashes her passion.

TIZIANO Vecellio
Bacchanal of the Andrians
1523-24
Oil on canvas, 175 x 193 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

TIZIANO Vecellio
Bacchanal of the Andrians (detail)
1523-24

TIZIANO Vecellio
Bacchanal of the Andrians (detail)
1523-24
Oil on canvas
Titian was not afraid to depict
humorously the more drastic aspects of
the bacchanal.

VELÁZQUEZ, Diego Rodriguez de Silva y
The Feast of Bacchus (Los borrachos)
Drunkenness was regarded in Spain as a contemptible vice and "borracho" (drunkard) was the most
scathing of insults. At the royal court, it seems to have been considered highly entertaining to invite
low-lifers from the comedy theatres and inebriate them for the amusement of the ladies.
Like a modern conceptual photographic artwork Velázquez it imagines that the ancient god Bacchus
has come to earth in early-modern Spain. Instead of the satyrs and maenads who follow him in the
old stories, Bacchus is surrounded by scruffy boozers.

1628 - 1629

(detail)
1628 - 1629

RUBENS, Peter Paul
The Drunken Silenus
In Greek mythology Silenus is a rural god, one of the retinue of Bacchus, a gay, fat old drunkard who
was yet wise and had the gift of prophecy.
In Rubens' painting he is shown drunkenly tottering, his belly swollen with meat and drink, and
supported by a disparate collection of dotards, drunkards, blacks, children and young women. The
careless inebriation of this bacchanal is expressed by a thicker touch that conveys the unwieldy
weight of the drinkers' gait.

RUBENS, Peter Paul
The Drunken Silenus
1616-17
Oil on wood, 212 x 214,5 cm
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

RUBENS, Peter Paul
The Drunken Silenus (detail)
1616-17
Oil on wood, 212 x 214,5 cm
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

CARAVAGGIO
Bacchus
Bacchus, Roman god of wine and ecstatic parties, is depicted by Caravaggio as a youthful, blushing
boy. Proffering a glass of wine to the viewer we are invited into an un-godly scene.
Decaying fruit and wilting flowers decorate a strangely androgynous teenager scantily clad in his bed
sheet. Caravaggio made no attempt to uphold the purported godly illusion; the ripples in the wine held
out by the boy suggest the tremble of his hand and he has dirt under his fingernails.

CARAVAGGIO
Bacchus
c. 1596
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

CARAVAGGIO
Bacchus (detail)
c. 1596
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

MANET, Edouard
At the Café (Bock Drinkers)
The style known now as bock was a dark, malty, lightly hopped ale first brewed in the 14th century by
German brewers in the Hanseatic town of Einbeck.
The style from Einbeck was later adopted by Munich brewers in the 17th century and adapted to the new
lager style of brewing. Due to their Bavarian accent, citizens of Munich pronounced "Einbeck" as "ein
Bock" ("a billy goat"), and thus the beer became known as "bock".

MANET, Edouard
At the Café (Bock Drinkers)
1878
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

MANET, Edouard
At the Café (Bock Drinkers) (detail)
1878
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

DEGAS, Edgar
Absinthe Drinkers
Two figures sat side-by-side, staring in silent isolation droop in front of their glasses of absinthe.
The painting was released to a muted response; some thought it was a condemnation of the
eponymous green spirit, which was discovered to be so harmful it was later prohibited, others thought
the painting was a representation of the increasing social isolation in Paris during its period of rapid
growth.
Either way critics called it “ugly and disgusting”.

DEGAS, Edgar
Absinthe Drinkers
1876
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

DEGAS, Edgar
Absinthe Drinkers (detail)
1876
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

GOGH, Vincent van
Café Table with Absinthe
Van Gogh painted this café table with a view in highly thinned oil paint with thin brushes. This
technique is called peinture à l’essence. The result looks something like a watercolour.
The glass holds absinthe, a popular aperitif. Its alcohol content was 60 to 70%, and it was often mixed
with water. Van Gogh drank it frequently.
There are theories that Gogh cut his ear after having drunk too much. His use of yellow can also be
attributed to his absinthe-absent-mindedness. Same applies to Gauguin. Do we owe his bright
colours to absinthe, too???!!!!

GOGH, Vincent van
Café Table with Absinthe
Paris, February - March 1887
Oil on canvas, 46.3 cm x 33.2 cm
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent
van Gogh Foundation)

GOGH, Vincent van
Café Table with Absinthe (detail)
Paris, February - March 1887
Oil on canvas, 46.3 cm x 33.2 cm
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent
van Gogh Foundation)

PICASSO, Pablo
The Absinthe Drinker
In France absinthe became called “La Fée Verte”, meaning “The Green Fairy”, a fairy who drives a
man into a hypnotic state.
Especially that absinthe had this reputation of an addictive, mind-altering drink which could transport
men into mysterious psychological states. Although this psychoactive effect is contested nowadays, in
the 19th century it was the drink of writers, painters and the intellectual crème de la crème of Paris
who believed in its magical quality.

PICASSO, Pablo
The Absinthe Drinker
1901
Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

PICASSO, Pablo
The Absinthe Drinker (detail)
1901
Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, Henri de
At the Moulin Rouge
Most of the avant-guarde artists drank absinthe. Among them there were Impressionists, Post-
Impressionists, Surrealists, Cubists… They spent many evenings in bars and cafes drinking
absinthe and discussing art, politics and literature.
They also had their own recipes for cocktails. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was famous for a drink
called “The Earthquake”, a potent cocktail made of half absinthe and half cognac, sometimes
served with ice or shaken in a shaker filled with ice.. Imagine the hangover.

At the Moulin Rouge
1892-93
Art Institute, Chicago

At the Moulin Rouge (detail)
1892-93
Art Institute, Chicago

The art of drinking…
in paintings
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“A lady came up to me one day and said ‘Sir! You are drunk’, to which I replied ‘I am drunk today
madam, and tomorrow I shall be sober, but you will still be ugly.”
~ Winston S. Churchill
“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.”
~ Ernest Hemingway
“In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is Freedom, in water there is bacteria.”
~ Benjamin Franklin
“My dear girl, there are some things that just aren't done, such as drinking Dom Perignon '53 above
the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That's just as bad as listening to the Beatles without
earmuffs!”
~ Goldfinger (1964), Sean Connery as James Bond
“When alchemists first learned how to distill spirits, they called it aqua vitae, the water of life, and far
from considering it the work of the devil, they thought the discovery was divinely inspired.”
~ Gene Logsdon, Good Spirits.

The art of drinking …in paintings

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