About this artwork
The title Bacchanal sickeningly describes this image of German forces pillaging and looting with drunken abandon and glee, even as they beat and murder village women and children. The print relates a sense of moral outrage at the depth of German depravity and brutality. The directional lines of the composition and the illumination of the scene create a focal point at the slight, limp body of the child at center, who is impaled on a soldier’s bayonet. The child’s seeming weightlessness and pale, glowing flesh symbolize the otherworldly suffering of these innocents, while the purity of this martyr renders the sinister debauchery surrounding him all the more obscene.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Prints and Drawings
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Artist
- George Wesley Bellows
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Title
- Bacchanal
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- Made 1918
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Medium
- Lithograph on ivory wove paper
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Dimensions
- Image: 47 × 61 cm (18 9/16 × 24 1/16 in.); Sheet: 60 × 80 cm (23 5/8 × 31 1/2 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of William T. Cresmer
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Reference Number
- 1950.1649
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
