Bacchanaal 1766 - 1806

Editor: This is Laurent Guyot’s *Bacchanaal*, a charcoal drawing that the Rijksmuseum dates sometime between 1766 and 1806. The revelry looks a little… chaotic. The figures feel caught between celebration and…well, a bit of a mess! What strikes you most when you look at this piece? Curator: Ah, *Bacchanaal*. Indeed, "chaotic" feels right, doesn’t it? Like stumbling into a fever dream after too much wine! But within that apparent chaos, I sense a delicate exploration of the Dionysian spirit, the unleashing of primal energies, filtered, I believe, through the romantic lens of Guyot’s era. The Romanticism shows the subjective and emotional approach of Guyot! The drawing uses allegory, and can be defined as caricature, surrealism... All these artistic liberties that represent the opposite of the rigidity of a 'sane' Roman spirit. Do you get that sense? A pulling apart, perhaps? Editor: I do. It's as if he’s exaggerating the classic Bacchanal scenes for…emphasis? Curator: Exactly. Note the medium: charcoal. Quick, immediate, expressive, right? It lends itself perfectly to capturing that sense of fleeting ecstasy, of bodies in motion, of emotions unfurled. But it also has the quality of creating something temporary or changing... Perhaps Guyot questions with the same tools and mood his commitment to his convictions and 'world view'... Look at the use of light and shadow, how it sculpts the forms, giving them a ghostly presence… and look again, closer. What narratives do *you* think that they conceal? Editor: Well, I hadn’t thought about the ghostly part. It gives a totally new edge! Curator: Isn't that fantastic? And that is, exactly, the aim of it. Editor: Always something more to learn!