Nicolas Poussin - A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term [1632-33]

Nicolas Poussin - A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term [1632-33], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Arcadian revellers drink and dance before a term (a pillar crowned with a torso and head of an ancient god), here either Pan or Priapus, both associated with fertility, rustic dance and drunkenness. In spite of the frantic activity of the dancing figures, some derived from Renaissance precedents, they have been carefully posed to form a structured, flowing design. The figures in this painting have more solidity than in some of Poussin's earlier pictures of Bacchic subjects. The treatment of the landscape here was inspired by Poussin's knowledge of 16th-century Venetian paintings in Roman collections.

[Oil on canvas, 98 x 142.8 cm]