Midas and Bacchus
Nicolas Poussin·1624
Historical Context
Poussin painted Midas and Bacchus around 1624–25, depicting the myth in which the Phrygian king Midas, granted his wish that everything he touch turn to gold, kneels before Bacchus to beg release from his curse. The subject was appropriate to Poussin's early Roman period, when he was establishing his reputation as a painter of mythological subjects for the educated Roman collector market. His treatment shows the influence of Bolognese classicism — particularly Annibale Carracci's mythological paintings — in the elegant figure arrangement and the warm, Venetian-inflected coloring. Midas's posture of supplication before the god gives the composition its moral content: the punishment of greed and the wisdom of recognizing when worldly desires exceed their value.
Technical Analysis
The sensuous rendering of Bacchus's nude figure and the warm Venetian palette of golds and greens characterize Poussin's early Roman style, before his later evolution toward greater formal austerity.
