Dionysos 1743 - 1809

Editor: Here we have Nicolai Abildgaard's drawing, *Dionysos*, made sometime between 1743 and 1809. It's a pencil drawing, and the god seems lost in thought, draped in classical robes and holding a goblet. What’s your read on this piece? Curator: It's interesting, isn't it? The grid showing through reminds us we are looking at a study, a drawing – perhaps from life, maybe preparatory. I’m drawn to the tentative quality of the lines. He’s reaching back through time, trying to touch the spirit of antiquity. There’s an attempt to recreate the serene, almost melancholic, beauty of classical sculpture. But it’s filtered, tinged with his own northern European sensibility, don't you think? Almost a yearning. Editor: Yes, yearning is a great word for it! You can sense Abildgaard really engaging with classical forms, almost as if in conversation with them, not simply copying. Is this something typical for art from that period? Curator: Absolutely! This era was absolutely swimming in Neoclassicism, a real hunger for the "purity" and "idealism" of ancient Greece and Rome. Artists were measuring statues, copying friezes. But here, it's not cold or academic. There’s a life to it. This Dionysos isn’t a marble god, he's a man, maybe a little bit world-weary. The lines are softer and the expression isn't fixed but ambiguous and emotional. What did you initially think of, mood wise? Editor: I picked up on that mood; a feeling that despite being about the god of wine, ecstasy and theatre, that *Dionysos* also seems quietly serious, in contemplation of his wine and theatre? Curator: That makes sense to me. And it’s exactly where the work lives; in the artist's contemplation between god-like fantasy and mortal truth. Editor: Thank you, this has given me a great deal to consider regarding the conversation happening here.