Bacchus by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much hidden in “Bacchus” by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. This is a famous portrait of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus. But with a technology called reflectography, art historians were able to discover a hidden image under the painting in 2009. On the bottom left of the painting, there is a hidden image of a man trapped inside of the carafe of wine. The man is sitting upright, and he has his arm held up to paint on a canvas. Pretty much everyone assumes that this is a hidden self-portrait of Caravaggio. In his personal life, Caravaggio was known to drink a lot and have terrible mood swings. When he drank, he often got into fights with people, and even committed murder. Maybe he painted himself trapped in the wine bottle to symbolize his battle with alcohol.
Another “hidden” fact about the Caravaggio painting is that most people speculate that the man in the portrait was his model and lover, Mario Minniti. Caravaggio was bisexual, and he was known to use both male and female lovers as his models. When you look at “Bacchus”, it truly does have a homo-erotic vibe. Dionysus looks at you with a seductive look in his eye. And if you look closely at the fruit basket, you’ll see a bursting pomegranate, which symbolizes temptation and fertility. But it’s sitting next to a rotting apple. Some art experts believe this is meant to symbolize that the joy of youth- fornication, drinking, and partying, is fleeting.