Bacchus and Pan

The sculpture that I looked at was a Roman copy of the Greek original Bacchus and Pan, created in the second century A.D.  Bacchus was the Roman equivalent of the Greek Dionysus while Pan was himself a Greek god.  The sculptor’s name is unknown.  I saw this sculpture at the Chicago Art Institute a partially damaged form.  Essentially, the sculpture portrays Bacchus and Pan standing together.  Honestly, the reason I selected this sculpture was because I thought it was pretty funny.  There was just something about the short stature of the characters as well as the most likely historical function of the piece that made me feel happy.  Since this is a statue of Bacchus, it is very possible that it was owned by heavy partygoers.  Looking at the sculpture and all of the crazy moments that it must have witnessed made art seem like it was one big connector of human history for me.

        This depiction of Bacchus and Pan shows the religious nature of Rome.  Ironically also, it is an interesting historical remnant of the cult of Bacchus, which existed in Rome.  Today, the word bacchanalian in English refers to drunken revelry and states of extreme drunkenness.  As the god of wine, Bacchus was worshipped by certain cults that focused on drunkenness and the immoral, according to those times.  This sculpture is a remnant of the very realistic groups of followers that Bacchus had during those times.  Additionally, it demonstrates the Roman fascination with Greek art forms.  The sculpture’s style is a direct emulation of the Greek styles.  Rome adopted many things from Greece, not just artistic traditions, but even more than that.  They adopted a similar religious pantheon based of the Greek one and this sculpture demonstrates this as well.

Both Bacchus and Pan have recognizable forms, with clearly defined body parts.  The depiction of Pan is a little bit more different, but that’s simply the way that he was religiously portrayed.  Although the skill level required to create this work might have been commonplace at the time of the Romans, at least from the perspective of everyday people today, it is a very complex work.  One thing that stood out to me was the level of detail that was put into depicting Bacchus’ hair.  In line with the Greek fascination with the human body, the depiction of Pan and Bacchus are naturalistic.  They represent the subject matter with as much fidelity to the real world as possible.  I think this sculpture was intended to appeal to emotion because of the set-up.  Bacchus, the god of wine and the bacchanalian is standing sensuously while Pan is standing in a feral way.  As I mentioned earlier, I can just see this work at Bacchanalian parties urging the drunkards to get even more reckless.

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