Bust of a Man. Allegory of Bacchus

This allegorical bust produced in 1868 demonstrates a facet of Fortuny's practice rarely foregrounded in discussions of his orientalist work: a genuine engagement with classical Mediterranean subject matter filtered through the sensuous tradition of Venetian old masters. Bacchus, god of wine and ecstatic release, was a recurring subject in Catalan and Spanish academic art, but Fortuny transforms the allegory into something more personal — a study in fleshy warmth and bravura paint handling that owes as much to Velázquez as to any formal allegorical program. The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, which holds the work, was an appropriate home for a painting that represents the pre-eminent Catalan artist of his generation in an unexpected mode. Allegory was becoming unfashionable in progressive European circles by 1868, and the fact that Fortuny painted it at this moment may reflect the complex relationship between his commercial success and his private artistic ambitions.

Thick impasto defines the fleshy warmth of the figure with vigorous loaded strokes that describe volume without laborious modeling. Fortuny draws on the Venetian tradition of warm undertone painting, building luminosity through layered glazes over a reddish ground. The vine leaves and grape clusters are handled with the same directness as the flesh.