BACCHUS – GOD OF FREEDOM
In the painting “Bacchus and Pentheus” by Vanessa Foschi there’s Bacchus/Dionysus, the twice-born among the celestial gods. He is depicted while leading the king of Thebes Pentheus to Mount Cithairon and his doom. He is disguised like a woman to spy on the sacred rites of the Bacchants/Maenads, forbidden to men. The red robes foreshadow his bloody slaughtering at their hands. His eyes have slit pupils like a snake to remind of his ancestry: in fact his father Echion leaped from the Earth in which were planted the teeth of Ares’s fateful snake.
Tecnique oil on canvas. Painted by Vanessa Foschi. Written by Vanessa. All rights reserved