The Triumph of Bacchus

Velázquez painted this in Madrid in 1628, not long before he first sailed to Italy, and for a court that mostly wanted saints and solemn portraits. What he handed the young king Philip IV instead was a drinking party. Bacchus, the god of wine, sits half undressed and crowns a kneeling soldier with a wreath of ivy. Around him are not nymphs but real Spanish men, sunburned, in patched clothes and battered hats, some of them grinning straight out at you. Spaniards have always just called it Los Borrachos, The Drunks. The joke has a serious side. Velázquez paints the god and the day labourers with exactly the same honest attention, so the wine seems to level everyone on that stony ground. He was around 29 when he did it.