| "The bacchante... offered the cherished opportunity to
display young girls with few, or no clothes on, while invoking the semireligious
sanction of antiquity. Cassatt, painting in Parma under the clear eye of
Correggio, did not succumb to the temptation of easy eroticism. Her bacchante
is immediately a real person. The vine leaves in her hair are underplayed,
the cymbals are more than props, they are closely observed in their well-used,
slightly battered state. The dancer's fixed intensity of expression reveals
well enough the transport sought by the wine-god's devotees. Cassatt herself
emerges in the powerful instinct for the bones beneath the flesh and for
the flesh in light and shade." from Mary Cassatt Paintings and Prints by Frank Geitlin |
Other versions of this image online: http://www.myrrhine.net/cassatt/cassatt.html http://www.loggia.com/art/19th/cassatt01.html |
MORE BACCHANTE IMAGES by other artists. |
copyright 2003 by Tracy Marks Last updated July 16, 2003 You are visitor |