English: Drawing of a fresco depicting Bacchus giving grapes to Ampelos, (personification of the vine) 1870. Translated related text: "'Bacchus gives the grapes to the vine,' was a sacramental phrase which the mythographers had translated by various personifications, and which the painters also reproduced in their own way. Here Bacchus, in the guise of a handsome adolescent, presents a bunch of grapes to a very young child, who must be he whom the poets call Ampelos. The ivy, with its corymbs, crowns the forehead of the god of wine, and the point of his thyrsus is adorned with a ribbon. Ankle boots shoe his elegant leg, and a cloak of azure envelopes it in part with its rich and wide folds. His pose is noble and natural. The child, in an attitude full of naivete, stands on tiptoe and stretches out his little hands towards the fruit he covets.

"This figure is further evidence against the critics who claim that the ancients did not succeed in depicting children as fully as gods and goddesses, which they always assumed to be of marriageable age, as if one did not know that a Cupid of Praxiteles was the only object which attracted to Thespia the assistance of friends of art! As if Paros did not show beside his Gnidian Venus a Cupid who, carved from the same block, was the object of the same homage! As if one did not know finally of the angels of the glory of Saint Peter of Titian, the most beautiful, says a critic, who ever descended from heaven, were drawn after the antique. In truth, the ancients did not give children that kind of swelling, puffiness, which the Flemings are fond of, and which, suitably treated, has perhaps its merit and its effect: it is a question of climates and mores: Greek artists were not enamored with the uncertain forms of early childhood, which lived confined in the gynaeceum; they preferred a slightly more advanced and more interesting age for them, distinct limbs and joints, forms, if not slender, at least a little free, rough-hewn, and containing the seed of suppleness and the grace of the adolescent.

Identifier: herculanumetpomp18703barr (find matches)
Title: Herculanum et Pompéi, recueil général des peintures, bronzes, mosaïques, etc., découverts jusqu'à ce jour, et reproduits d'apreès Le antichita di Ercolano, Il Museo borbonico, et tous les ouvrages analogues
Year: 1870 (1870s)
Authors: Barré, Louis, 1799-1857 Roux, H. (Henri), Sr Bouchet, Adolphe
Subjects: Art, Greco-Roman
Publisher: Paris, Firmin Didot frères, fils et cie
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
spoètes appellent Ampélus. Le lierre, avec ses corymbes,couronne le front du dieu du vin et la pointe de sonthyrse orné dune bandelette * des bottines chaussentsa jambe élégante, et un manteau dazur lenveloppe enpartie de ses riches et larges plis. Sa pose est noble etnaturelle. Lenfant, dans une attitude pleine de naïveté,se dresse sur la pointe du pied, et étend ses petites mainsvers le fruit quil convoite. Cette figure est une nouvelle preuve à opposer auxcritiques qui prétendent que les anciens nont pas réussidans la représentation des enfants aussi complètementque dans celle des dieux et déesses, quils ont toujourspris à lâge nubile. Comme si lon ne savait pas quunAmour de Praxitèle était le seul objet qui attirât àThespie le concours des amis de lart! comme si Parosne montrait pas à côté de sa Vénus Gnidienne un Cupi-don qui, taillé dans le même bloc, était lobjet desmêmes hommages! comme si Ton ne savait pas enfin lK IN i( il; K ,s 2.T.-e Série. 114
Text Appearing After Image:
E . 51 -•i3m mo? /> •/n////■ f/s/fT ■ t /* fstrj. \ l (ni ;

Note About Images

Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.