Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 105. (Budapest, 2006)

ANNUAL REPORT - A 2006. ÉV - MÁRTON OROSZ: Poussin: Bacchanal: Enchantment and Pleasures—Evoking a Bygone Golden Age

Ill POUSSIN: BACCHANAL: ENCHANTMENT AND PLEASURESEVOKING A BYGONE GOLDEN AGE March 31, 2006 -May 21, 2006 Curators: István Németh and Agnes Szigethi ISTVÁN NÉMETH AND ÁGNES SZIGETHI, POUSSIN: BACCHANAL: ENCHANTMENT AND PLEASURES-EVOKING A BYGONE GOLDEN AGE. BUDAPEST 2006. HUNGARIAN AND ENGLISH TEXT. 110 PP.. 31 COL. ILLS.. ISBN 963 7063 28 5 The third episode in the centenary chamber exhibition series is centred on the painting of Nicolas Poussin: Small Bacchanal, also known as the Childhood of Bacchus, on loan from the Louvre. Poussin was born in Normandy and was one of the greatest classical French Baroque masters of the seventeenth century. In 1624 he went to Rome which became his home for the rest of his life. In Rome he was patronized by aristocrats, who had been tutored in humanism, to paint the idyllic happiness of the mythical Arcadia, and his subsequent works were often overtly erotic. The sources for the iconography of these works on this theme were the texts of ancient Latin authors, or Poussin was occasionally inspired by contemporary French and Italian works. The direct predecessor of the Small Bacchanal was Titian's Bacchanal of Aldobrandini and the central fresco painting of Annibale Carracci on the ceiling of the Palazzo Farnese, the Triumphal Procession of Bacchus and Ariadne. The Small Bacchanal is a bucolic genre-piece, in its handling of colours and in its light-effects it resembles the works of Titian. In the centre of the composition is the child Bacchus, flanked by two satyrs, drinking from a golden bowl. The other displayed work by Poussin belongs to the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts. It depicts the Rest on the Flight into Egypt and at the same time uses the playing putti to evoke reminiscences of Arcadian scenery. The curators of the exhibition selected additional works from the Museum's holdings that were in some aspect analogotis wdth the central masterpiece from the Louvre, either in regard to their theme or atmosphere. As the subtitle of the exhibition suggests the paintings evoked the sensual pleasures articulated under the spell of a bygone golden age, and a longing for ideal beauty. The works of art primarily came from the workshops of those seventeenth-century artists who themselves had lived and worked for a period in Rome, often influenced by Poussin's style. The earliest work presented in the exhibition was Abraham Janssens' Bath of Diana, which depicts an erotic-