Drunken Silenus Satyr and Nymphs

Nicolas Poussins Drunken Silenus Satyr and Nymphs is a brush and wash drawing heightened with lead white over black chalk on tan laid paper that depicts the mythological scene of the drunken Silenus surrounded by satyrs and nymphs, a subject from Greek mythology that allowed Poussin to explore the relationship between classical composition and the Dionysian themes of intoxication and abandon. Poussin, the French painter who spent most of his career in Rome and became the standard-bearer of classical painting for the French academic tradition, produced drawings throughout his career that demonstrate the combinatory method of composition for which he is celebrated in his paintings: the arrangement of figures in carefully orchestrated poses that create a visual narrative of emotional and intellectual content. The brush and wash medium, with its capacity for broad tonal areas and sharp accents of heightened white, allows Poussin to create the sculptural three-dimensionality and atmospheric depth that distinguish his painted compositions in a graphic medium that can be worked and reworked more freely than oil paint. The tan laid paper provides a warm ground that unifies the composition and gives the wash drawing the tonal coherence of a painting, while the perimeter mounting on ivory wove paper suggests that the drawing was valued as a finished work of art rather than a preparatory sketch. The drunken Silenus, a figure of comic excess and physical abandon, provides a subject that allows Poussin to demonstrate his mastery of the reclining figure and the foreshortened pose that are among the most challenging problems of classical composition.

Poussins drawings are among the most accomplished works in the history of Western draftsmanship, and their influence on the practice of composition extends from his contemporaries through the academic tradition to the present. The Drunken Silenus drawing demonstrates his ability to organize mythological subjects with the same combinatory method that he applied to his paintings.

A brush and wash drawing by Poussin heightened with lead white on tan laid paper depicting the drunken Silenus with satyrs and nymphs, demonstrating his combinatory method of classical composition and mastery of the foreshortened reclining figure in the wash medium.