Lot embriagado por sus hijas
Luca Giordano·1694
Historical Context
Lot Inebriated by His Daughters depicts the disturbing aftermath of Sodom's destruction: Lot's daughters, believing all men had been killed in the catastrophe, made their father drunk and slept with him to preserve humanity. The subject was one of the most morally complex in the Old Testament, and Baroque painters found in it material that combined dramatic narrative with the depiction of the female nude and the male figure in a state of inebriation. The daughters' action was simultaneously incestuous transgression and desperate pragmatic virtue — seeking to preserve humanity when the world seemed to have ended — and the moral ambiguity gave the subject a psychological depth rare in straightforward narrative painting. Giordano treated the subject with his characteristic combination of sensuous visual pleasure and theological seriousness, the warm skin tones of the women against the recumbent figure of Lot rendered with the same Venetian-influenced palette he brought to his mythological subjects.
Technical Analysis
The nighttime setting with the burning city visible in the background contextualizes the scene. Giordano renders the figures with his characteristic naturalism while the dramatic lighting creates an atmosphere of moral ambiguity.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the nighttime setting with the burning city of Sodom visible in the background: Giordano situates the morally complex episode within its narrative context — the destruction that preceded and caused it.
- ◆Look at the dramatic lighting from the burning city creating an unusual external light source: the fire of divine judgment illuminates the scene of human transgression.
- ◆Find Giordano's naturalistic handling of the figures within the biblical framework: even this controversial subject is rendered with the same direct observation he brings to his genre scenes.
- ◆Observe that this 1694 Prado work belongs to the Spanish Old Testament series — Giordano painted subjects of every moral character for the Spanish royal collection, demonstrating the breadth of his range and the royal patrons' appetite for complete biblical coverage.
