Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (11.1970)

shows the influence of several literary sources, although the author’s main inspiration was Philo-
stratus. A lot of symbolic elements can be found there: the crown and the rocks, the sea, the thyr-
sus and the vine wreath. There are satyres peeping at the sleeping Ariadnę and there is Amor,
the action is going to start any moment, the futurę events being determined by symbols. This
is a situation quite different from that represented in Backer’s youthful work. In Backer’s work
the action, although put to a standstill, is important and not the attributes. The fright denomina-
tes the woman as Ariadnę, the expression of love — the enamoured god of winę.

In the Warsa w picture only the situation may be determined as a symbolic one but dominating
is the staging of the myth in a straightforward and naively arcadian way performed in our
presence not by antiąue heroes but by a little awkward nudę couple — a Dutch shepherd
and a shepherdess.

Translated by Zbigniew Filipoieicz

8. Jacob Jordaens, Bacchus and Ariadnę, Boston, Mass., Museum of Fine Arts, Maria T. B
Hopkins Fund. (phot. courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

106