Frank Auerbach, Bacchus and Ariadne 1971
© Frank Auerbach
Display caption
Auerbach based this painting on Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne (1522-3) in the National Gallery, London. Titian depicts the Roman god of wine with his dissolute followers, catching sight of Ariadne, whom he married and transformed into a constellation of stars. Adapting the figures, trees and clouds of the original painting into a vivid network of lines and gestural brushwork, Auerbach conveys a powerful sense of energy and movement. 'I mean to make it as extreme as possible', he told the collector David Wilkie, who commissioned the painting.
August 2004
Other works of art you may be interested in
Find similar artworks
Artist
Frank Auerbach
(77)
Category
Painting
(5,294)
Decade
1970-9
(5,580)
Style or ‘-ism’
20th century post-1945
(3,604)
School of London
(377)
Subject
abstraction
(8,371)
from recognisable sources
(3,325)
emotions, concepts and ideas
(7,969)
formal qualities
(5,712)
gestural
(539)
nature
(37,446)
landscape
(24,055)
landscape - non-specific
(552)
religion and belief
(2,374)