December Dionysia

 Let us not forget December was probably the month in which the Winter Dionysia were held.

Party safely people and dont spread Covid !

Ariadne and Dionysios Again

#ariadne #dionysios #wedding

Another wedding of Ariadne and Dionysios scene  this time a mosaic

The color range seems some what limited compared to Renaissance and Baroque treatments of this theme but note the use of the cool grays to contrast with the ochres yellows and reds and flesh tones!

Even more Party God

#dionysios #greekart
Mid week so we're back to the Party God of the Olympians

DIONYSIOS 

This is part of an Hellenistic Mosaic which may be a copy of a painting or an original work.

Its a common theme the god reclining and like earlier paintings on ceramic vessels he's half naked and wearing a wreath however the theme's details have changed ...he's now clean shaven no beard and the use of mosaic allows the artist to show him with pale skin and include a tonal background and foreground not possible with the limited range of colors on Classical ceramics.

The Greeks and Romans did not have stoneware glazes or underglazing under clear glazes.
That gloss you see thats polished terra sigillata not glaze! Contact with glass making cultures expanded the range of colors for painting and mosaic.

The satyrs having darker skin? Why?  Drawing attention to Dionysios having pale skin like an aristo or a woman and emphasizing which figure is the god and by contrast showing the Satyrs are wild rural deities.

More Party God

#dionysios #dionysus #greekpainting #greekceramics

Another Party god image

While part of the image has been destroyed he appears from the elaborate pleating to be wearing a womens dress possibly one discarded by a maenad since he also has a leopard skin draped over one arm though it could just be a large wild cat ?

Is this a scene from the Bacchae being illustrated or proof that the idea Dionysios sometimes cross dressed was common ?

The Wedding of Dionysios and Ariadne

#weddign #dionysios #ariadne

There are a lot fo Renaissance and Baroque paintings on the theme of Bacchus and Ariadne and their first meeting or wedding but I came across this piece the other day and I like this

Ariadne daughter of Minos grand daughter of gods stands side by side with Dionysios the god of wine and parties as an equal playfully affectionately adjusting her spouses wreath with Poseidon on one side and Hermes on the other. 

Its one of those simple elegant images that show the beauty of Greek Classical art at its finest!

Dionysios the Party God

#dionysios #mosaic

Our next sequence of secular mid week posts will feature the Party God the infamous son of Semele and Zeus and noted cross dresser when not half nude!

This is Dionysios riding a leopard 

No that is not a woman or a maenad

Dionysios is usually depicted as a man wearing the sort of festival robes only an aristocrat could afford or being half naked and while the earliest depictions show him with a beard he starts being depicted as beardless in Hellenistic Art. He is often shown riding a leopard or being pulled in a chariot drawn by tigers and leopards or dancing with his Maenads. I'll be showing you examples of all of these over the next couple of weeks

Dionysios Mosaic at Delos

One noted site for Mosaics is the Island of Delos. However clearly whoever created this one hadn't seen a leopard unless the cat depicted here is some unknown now extinct sub species? I suspect given some of the depictions of leopards I've seen in other ancient art that  some artists had seen what are now called king cheetahs and given the spots thought they were a kind of leopard.

The Hellenistic master who designed this piece has moved away from the older outline style influenced by vase painting towards a more tonal style.

This may be a copy of a painting however it could also be an original work. Pliny writes about pictors who apparently designed and oversaw the creation of mosaics. My next  post features one such work.