Painting by the master of the Bologna academic school of painting by Guido Reni “Prankster Bacchus”. The size of the painting is 72 x 56 cm, oil on canvas. In Rome, the cult of Bacchus – or, as it was previously called, Liber, identified with the old Italian Liber-Pater, – was borrowed from the South Italian Greeks, along with the cult of Demeter and Persephone.
In 496 BC, a common temple was built for all three deities and an annual holiday was set up in March – Liberalia. Only much later was introduced the Greek mystical ministry to Bacchus, which here soon assumed the character of extreme licentiousness and immorality.
Earlier works of art represent Bacchus as a man already in adulthood, a magnificent posture, with long hair and a beard, in long clothes, with a bandage on his head and a cup or a bunch of grapes in his hand. Later art depicted Bacchus as a young man or teenager, of a soft, tender build, completely naked or covered with deerskin and in hunting cottages. On the head of Bacchus there is a bandage and a wreath, in his hand is a tirs.
