Bacchant before 1905

Paul Pichier made this small print of a Bacchant, we don't know when, but I like the way the tone is so consistent, almost as if the image itself has been stained by wine. I'm really interested in how the leaves and grapes form a kind of loose halo around the figure. The eye is led around and around, so that the figure is not one single thing, but a kind of energetic movement. The whole image is just variations on a single color, which creates an overall mood. I'm reminded of how Henri Matisse would often make paintings of one dominant color, like red, and then use other colors to play off of it. With Matisse, the painting is the thing, but in this print the figure seems to dissolve into the background, like the boundaries between things are not so clear. It’s all quite intoxicating.