''The Feast of the Gods'' (Italian: ''Il festino degli dei'') is an

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

by the Italian Renaissance master

Giovanni Bellini Giovanni Bellini (; c. 1430 – 26 November 1516) was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. He was raised in the household of Jacopo Bellini, formerly thought to have been his father ...

, with substantial additions in stages to the left and center landscape by

Dosso Dossi Giovanni di Niccolò de Luteri, better known as Dosso Dossi ( 1489–1542), was an Italian Renaissance painter who belonged to the School of Ferrara, painting in a style mainly influenced by Venetian painting, in particular Giorgione and early T ...

and

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...

. It is one of the few mythological pictures by the Venetian artist. Completed in 1514, it was his last major work. It is now in the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

in Washington D.C., which calls it "one of the greatest Renaissance paintings in the United States". The painting is the first major depiction of the subject of the " Feast of the Gods" in Renaissance art, which was to remain in currency until the end of

Northern Mannerism Northern Mannerism is the form of Mannerism found in the visual arts north of the Alps in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Styles largely derived from Italian Mannerism were found in the Netherlands and elsewhere from around the mid-century, es ...

over a century later. It has several similarities to another, much less sophisticated, treatment painted by the Florentine artist

Bartolomeo di Giovanni Bartolomeo di Giovanni di Domenico (1458? – 1501) was an Italian Renaissance painter active in Florence. His works were first identified by the art historian Bernard Berenson, who did not know the painter's real name so called him the "Alunno ...

in the 1490s, now in the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

Commission

Giovanni Bellini and Titian - The Feast of the Gods Detail- Mercury & Chinese porcelain

The painting is signed by an inscription on the fictive paper attached to the wooden tub at the lower right: "joannes bellinus venetus / p MDXIIII" ("Giovanni Bellini of Venice, painted 1514"), and his payment that year is recorded. Based on a narrative by

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

, it is the earliest of a cycle of paintings, all major works, on mythological subjects produced for Alfonso, I d'Este, the Duke of

Ferrara Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...

, for his ''

camerino d'alabastro The Camerini d'alabastro (''little rooms of alabaster'') are a range of rooms built over the Via Coperta in Ferrara, northern Italy, linking the Castello Estense to the Palazzo Ducale. They may have included the ''studiolo'' or little study of ...

'' ('chamber of alabaster') in the

Castello Estense The ' (‘ Este castle’) or ' (‘St. Michael's castle’) is a moated medieval castle in the center of Ferrara, northern Italy. It consists of a large block with four corner towers. History On 3 May 1385, the Ferrarese people, driven to des ...

. The subjects had been chosen by 1511, by the

Renaissance humanist Renaissance humanism was a revival in the study of classical antiquity, at first in Italy and then spreading across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. During the period, the term ''humanist'' ( it, umanista) referred to teache ...

Mario Equicola Mario Equicola (c. 1470 – 26 July 1525) was an Italian people, Italian Renaissance humanist: a Neo-Latin language, neolatin author, a bibliophile, and a courtier of Isabella d'Este and Federico II, Duke of Mantua, Federico II Gonzaga. The Nat ...

, then working for the Duke's sister

Isabella d'Este Isabella d'Este (19 May 1474 – 13 February 1539) was Marchioness of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance as a major cultural and political figure. She was a patron of the arts as well as a leader of fashion, whos ...

, and instructions apparently including some sketches were sent to the artists. Later commissions were four large

s (one now lost), and ten smaller works by

, probably placed above them. The three surviving Titians painted for the room are ''

Bacchus and Ariadne ''Bacchus and Ariadne'' (1522–1523) is an oil painting by Titian. It is one of a cycle of paintings on mythological subjects produced for Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, for the Camerino d'Alabastro – a private room in his palazzo in ...

'' (

National Gallery, London The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...

), ''

The Bacchanal of the Andrians ''The Bacchanal of the Andrians'' or ''The Andrians'' is an oil painting by Titian. It is signed "TICIANUS F. ciebat and is dated to 1523–1526. History The painting was made by Titian for the Sala dei Baccanali in the Camerini d'alabastro f ...

'' and ''

The Worship of Venus __NOTOC__ ''The Worship of Venus'' is an oil on canvas painting by the Italian artist Titian completed between 1518 and 1519, housed at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain. It describes a Roman rite of worship conducted in honour of the goddes ...

'' (both

Prado The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It migh ...

, Madrid).

Alterations

It had been suggested that Bellini made a preliminary set of alterations before or soon after 1514 to make the painting more compatible with the original Latin of Ovid, having previously been working from an Italian ''Ovidio volgarizzato'' version, and that at this point Bellini changed most of the characters to gods rather than people from Thebes, giving them attributes and lower necklines for the women. But this view was based on a misunderstanding of the early x-rays taken in 1956. It is now thought that the figures are as originally painted by Bellini. Bellini died in 1516, soon after completing the painting, and some years later Dosso Dossi and perhaps

modified the landscape on the left to match it to his

(1518–1523), also in Alfonso's Camerino, adding the rocky hill behind the figures and the brighter foliage on a tree at the right. A more thorough reworking by Titian in about 1529 added more landscape, overpainting the earlier changes. But all the work on the figures remains Bellini's. A pheasant in a tree on the right, above Priapus, may have been painted by Alfonso himself, an amateur painter.

Subject

Giovanni Bellini and Titian - The Feast of the Gods - Detail- figures right & tub with script

The painting shows the incident of the attempted rape of Lotis. She was a

nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ty ...

mentioned by

, the daughter of

Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...

Nereus In Greek mythology, Nereus ( ; ) was the eldest son of Pontus (the Sea) and Gaia (the Earth), with Pontus himself being a son of Gaia. Nereus and Doris became the parents of 50 daughters (the Nereids) and a son ( Nerites), with whom Nereus liv ...

. During a festival in honor of

Liber In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Liber ( , ; "the free one"), also known as Liber Pater ("the free Father"), was a god of viticulture and wine, male fertility and freedom. He was a patron deity of Rome's plebeians and was part of the ...

that she attended,

Priapus In Greek mythology, Priapus (; grc, Πρίαπος, ) is a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term ...

tried to rape her while she was asleep, but she was awakened by a sudden cry of

Silenus In Greek mythology, Silenus (; grc, Σειληνός, Seilēnós, ) was a companion and tutor to the wine Greek god, god Dionysus. He is typically older than the satyrs of the Dionysian retinue (''thiasos''), and sometimes considerably older, ...

's ass and ran off, leaving Priapus in embarrassment as everyone else woke up too and became aware of his intentions.

, ''

Fasti In ancient Rome, the ''fasti'' (Latin plural) were chronological or calendar-based lists, or other diachronic records or plans of official and religiously sanctioned events. After Rome's decline, the word ''fasti'' continued to be used for simil ...

'', 1. 391 of; Bull, 242 The story is shown at the edges of the composition, in a somewhat undramatic fashion presumably showing a moment shortly before the key incident, with Silenus and his ass at left and Priapus and Lotis at right (and everyone but Lotis still wide awake). The subject had been depicted in the first illustrated edition of ''Ovid'' in Italian, published in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

in 1497. Another depiction of this rare subject in a Venetian print of 1510 has a very similar pose for Lotis but places much greater emphasis on the erotic nature of the story, including Priapus's outsize penis, here only a hint under the drapery. The figures shown are usually taken to be (left to right): a

satyr In Greek mythology, a satyr ( grc-gre, :wikt:σάτυρος, σάτυρος, sátyros, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( grc-gre, :wikt:Σειληνός, σειληνός ), is a male List of nature deities, nature spirit with ears ...

, Silenus with his ass, his ward

Bacchus In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, myth, Dionysus (; grc, wikt:Διόνυσος, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstas ...

as a boy, Silvanus (or

Faunus In ancient Roman religion and myth, Faunus was the rustic god of the forest, plains and fields; when he made cattle fertile he was called Inuus. He came to be equated in literature with the Greek god Pan, after which Romans depicted him as a ...

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

with his

caduceus The caduceus (☤; ; la, cādūceus, from grc-gre, κηρύκειον "herald's wand, or staff") is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology and consequently by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology. The same staff was also ...

and helmet, a satyr,

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...

, a nymph serving,

Cybele Cybele ( ; Phrygian: ''Matar Kubileya/Kubeleya'' "Kubileya/Kubeleya Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother"; Lydian ''Kuvava''; el, Κυβέλη ''Kybele'', ''Kybebe'', ''Kybelis'') is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forer ...

, Pan,

, two standing nymphs,

Ceres Ceres most commonly refers to: * Ceres (dwarf planet), the largest asteroid * Ceres (mythology), the Roman goddess of agriculture Ceres may also refer to: Places Brazil * Ceres, Goiás, Brazil * Ceres Microregion, in north-central Goiás ...

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

, Priapus, Lotis. Some of the figures may be portraits of people at the Ferrara court, including Alfonso and his wife

Lucrezia Borgia Lucrezia Borgia (; ca-valencia, Lucrècia Borja, links=no ; 18 April 1480 – 24 June 1519) was a Spanish-Italian noblewoman of the House of Borgia who was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza dei Cattanei. She reigned as the Govern ...

. Another suggestion is that the couple in the center, the male with his hand between the female's thighs, are a bridal pair, as shown by their intimacy and the

quince The quince (; ''Cydonia oblonga'') is the sole member of the genus ''Cydonia'' in the Malinae subtribe (which also contains apples and pears, among other fruits) of the Rosaceae family (biology), family. It is a deciduous tree that bears hard ...

she is holding, a fruit recommended for brides to increase their sexual appetites. If he is still Neptune, this would make her

Amphitrite In ancient Greek mythology, Amphitrite (; grc-gre, Ἀμφιτρίτη, Amphitrítē) was the goddess of the sea, the queen of the sea, and the wife of Poseidon. She was a daughter of Nereus and Doris (or Oceanus and Tethys).Roman, L., & Rom ...

Giovanni Bellini and Titian - The Feast of the Gods - Detail- Silenus

Interpretation

The work is atypical of Renaissance mythological painting in the down to earth treatment of the main deities, which may be accounted for by the figures beginning as ordinary citizens of Thebes, and by Bellini's inexperience in the emerging conventions of mythological art. The work was a considerable departure from his usual subject-matter of religious scenes and portraits for Bellini, who was over 80 when he began it. He had previously been reluctant to paint mythological stories, wriggling out of a commission from

, Alfonso's sister, in 1501–04 (she had to be content with a ''Nativity'' at a lower price than she had offered for a ''storia''). He was perhaps then reluctant to compete with his brother-in-law

Andrea Mantegna Andrea Mantegna (, , ; September 13, 1506) was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son-in-law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g. by lowering the horizon in order ...

, who specialized in classical subjects. But Mantegna had died in 1506. As the first work produced for the ''camerino'', Bellini determined many elements of the style for the cycle, which Titian needed to harmonize with in his later canvases. The room as a whole "constituted a large novelty in the European imagination", as the paintings "established in visual form the picture of the ideal, mythical Mediterranean idyll, made up of charming people enjoying themselves in a gorgeous landscape" and "presented figures from classical mythology as laymen engaged in lay pursuits of love and war, embodied in the new realistic naturalism which had only just been developed... Secular life came into high art by the back door as the representation of the stories of the classical gods, in whom no one believed, but who, since they were not real gods, could be placed in embarrassing situations. The pictures in the ''Camerino'' were perhaps the crucial stage in this revolution".

Later provenance

The paintings stayed in the room for which they were painted until 1598 when they were confiscated and taken to Rome by Cardinal Ippolito Aldobrandini ("junior") as

Papal Legate 300px, A woodcut showing Henry II of England greeting the pope's legate. A papal legate or apostolic legate (from the ancient Roman title ''legatus'') is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic ...

. The group was separated in 1623, and the ''Feast'' left the

Aldobrandini The House of Aldobrandini is an Italian noble family originally from Florence, where in the Middle Ages they held the most important municipal offices. Now the Aldobrandini are resident in Rome, with close ties to the Vatican. History Their ...

family in 1796–97, passing to the Camuccini family. The painting left Italy for England in 1853 and was bought by the

4th Duke of Northumberland Admiral Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland, (15 December 1792 – 12 February 1865), styled Lord Algernon Percy from birth until 1816 and known as The Lord Prudhoe between 1816 and 1847, was a British naval commander, explorer and C ...

, then sold in 1916 by the 7th Duke to the London dealer

Thomas Agnew and Sons Thomas Agnew & Sons is a fine arts dealer in London that began life as part of in a print and publishing partnership with Vittore Zanetti in Manchester in 1817 which ended in 1835, when Agnew took full control of the company. The firm opened its Lo ...

. It was bought in 1922 by the estate of the American magnate

Peter A. B. Widener Peter Arrell Browne Widener (November 13, 1834 – November 6, 1915) was an American businessman, art collector, and patriarch of the Widener family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Widener was ranked #29 on the ''American Heritage'' list of the f ...

(d. 1915) and in 1942 entered the

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

with the rest of his collection.

Exhibitions

It was exhibited in 1856 at the

British Institution The British Institution (in full, the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom; founded 1805, disbanded 1867) was a private 19th-century society in London formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists; it w ...

in London (as ''The Gods feasting on the Fruits of the Earth''). Since it came to Washington it has travelled to Venice in 1990, London and Madrid in 2003 (reuniting all four large works in the cycle, with three of the Dossi works), and

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

in 2006.

Painting materials

The painting was thoroughly investigated in 1985 and an extensive pigment analysis was undertaken in the course of the cleaning and conservation work on the painting. All three painters, Bellini, Dosso and Titian employed the pigments available in that time period such as natural

ultramarine Ultramarine is a deep blue color pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. The name comes from the Latin ''ultramarinus'', literally 'beyond the sea', because the pigment was imported into Europe from mines in Afgh ...

lead-tin-yellow Lead-tin-yellow is a yellow pigment, of historical importance in oil painting, sometimes called the "Yellow of the Old Masters" because of the frequency with which it was used by those famous painters. Nomenclature The name lead-tin yellow ...

malachite Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the formula Cu2CO3(OH)2. This opaque, green-banded mineral crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, and most often forms botryoidal, fibrous, or stalagmitic masses, in fractures ...

verdigris Verdigris is the common name for blue-green, copper-based pigments that form a patina on copper, bronze, and brass. The technical literature is ambiguous as to its chemical composition. Some sources refer to "neutral verdigris" as copper(II) ac ...

and

vermilion Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color, color family, and pigment most often made, since ancient history, antiquity until the 19th century, from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide, which is toxic) and its correspondi ...

. The Feast of Gods is one of the few examples of the use of

orpiment Orpiment is a deep-colored, orange-yellow arsenic sulfide mineral with formula . It is found in volcanic fumaroles, low-temperature hydrothermal veins, and hot springs and is formed both by sublimation and as a byproduct of the decay of another a ...

and

realgar Realgar ( ), also known as "ruby sulphur" or "ruby of arsenic", is an arsenic sulfide mineral with the chemical formula α-. It is a soft, sectile mineral occurring in monoclinic crystals, or in granular, compact, or powdery form, often in assoc ...

in the Renaissance oil painting in Italy. The very detailed and extensive scientific investigation of this painting has been made accessible to broader audience on the Internet by WebExhibits and also more recently by ColourLex.Bellini, The Feast of the Gods
ColourLex

Details

File:Giovanni Bellini and Titian - The Feast of the Gods - Detail- landscape to left.jpg, Titian's landscape to the left of the painting File:Giovanni Bellini and Titian - The Feast of the Gods - Detail- trees & pheasant.jpg, The pheasant may have been painted by Duke Alfonso File:Giovanni Bellini and Titian - The Feast of the Gods - Detail- label on tub.jpg, The label on the tub bears Bellini's name and the date 1514

Notes

References

*Bull, Malcolm, ''The Mirror of the Gods, How Renaissance Artists Rediscovered the Pagan Gods'', Oxford UP, 2005, *Colantuono, Anthony, "Dies Alcyoniae: The Invention of Bellini's Feast of the Gods", ''

The Art Bulletin The College Art Association of America (CAA) is the principal organization in the United States for professionals in the visual arts, from students to art historians to emeritus faculty. Founded in 1911, it "promotes these arts and their understa ...

'', Vol. 73, No. 2 (Jun., 1991), pp. 237–256
JSTOR
*Freedman, Luba, ''Classical Myths in Italian Renaissance Painting'', 2011, Cambridge University Press,
google books
*Holmes, George, "Giovanni Bellini and the Background to Venetian Painting", in ''Communes and Despots in Medieval and Renaissance Italy'', Editors: Bernadette Paton, John Easton Law, 2010, Ashgate Publishing Ltd,
google books
*Jaffé, David (ed), ''Titian'', No. 15, The National Gallery Company/Yale, London 2003, *Plesters, J. ''The Feast of the Gods: Conservation, Examination, and Interpretation.'' Studies in the History of Art, 40, 1990 *Spangeberg, K.L. (ed), ''Six Centuries of Master Prints'', Cincinnati Art Museum, 1993, * Syson, Luke, "''Belle'', Picturing Beautiful Women", in
Art and Love in Renaissance Italy
', ed. Andrea Bayer, 2008, Metropolitan Museum of Art,

External links

Investigating Bellini's ''Feast of the Gods
at WebExhibits
Bellini and Titian, ''The Feast of the Gods''
at ColourLex {{DEFAULTSORT:Feast of the Gods 1514 paintings Paintings by Giovanni Bellini Mythological paintings by Titian Collections of the National Gallery of Art Paintings commissioned for the camerini d'alabastro Birds in art Dogs in art Food and drink paintings Pan (god) in art Paintings of Bacchus Paintings based on Fasti (poem) Silenus