Redrawing 'Bacchus' by Caravaggio in my Style! // Classical Art History & Redraw

thank you hi everyone welcome back to another video and today we have yet another episode of redrawing classical paintings in my style and today's is very crazy I'm not gonna lie uh this guy really was wilding out in the 16th century and I only just found out about it I actually put up a poll on my patreon this time around for my patrons to pick which one I should do this time and my patrons picked Bacchus by Caravaggio so that's the one I'm going to be doing in today's video and if you guys would like to sign up to my patreon so that you can get in on those polls to pick which one I'll do next then the link will be down there in the description as per usual and as I said this one is really wild um he's probably the craziest artist that I've talked about so far in the series so strap in and I really like how the drawing itself came out which is also a plus and yeah I will just get into it I guess so as I said today we're going to be redrawing Bacchus by Michelangelo Caravaggio as usual I'll be doing the redraw and intermittently talking about my process while giving you all a little background on this painting as well as the artist who by the way is Wild As I said so let's begin as usual all the sources and references I use for this voiceover will be listed in the description below in case you'd like to go read up some more on this painting so as I begin the sketch for this redraw here let's get into the specifics about this painting the painting Bacchus is an oil and canvas painting done in 1598 by Michelangelo Medici also known as Caravaggio this painting is a whopping 95 by 85 centimeters in size and is currently being exhibited at the uffizi Museum in Florence I actually got the pleasure of seeing this painting live when I visited Florence a few years back I think four years ago and it was on the same trip that I saw the birth of Venus as you might recall from that episode in the series in that video I already went on and on about how amazing of a museum the euphesia is and how much I recommend everyone try to go visit at some point in their life but it really truly is incredible and this amazing painting is home to it as well before we get too into the painting I wanted to give a bit of a backstory on Caravaggio himself and a bit about his life although his life may have been short caravaggio's life was not at all tame or boring in the slightest National gallery.org actually describes the painter as quote arrogant rebellious and a murderer end quote which in and of itself is already a very big statement to make but it is true Caravaggio is probably not someone you'd want to hang around during his time alive so as mentioned before caravaggio's birth name was Michelangelo Medici he was born in 1571 in a town in Lombardi Italy called vietes Caravaggio so later in life he actually chose the name of his hometown as his artistic name which is why a lot of us don't even know that he was actually just another Michelangelo among probably Millions at the time although born in Caravaggio he spent a lot of his childhood in Milan where his major Domo and architect father had a workshop after Milan's Bubonic plague outbreak Caravaggio and his family have moved back to Caravaggio and this is going to get confusing because they're all the same name so they moved back to Caravaggio to escape the disease but still within six months Caravaggio had lost every male member of his family to the Black Death some say that his temperament and tendency to lash out might have stemmed from this traumatic start to life there is not much more information actually regarding caravaggio's childhood besides him doing an apprenticeship with a small Milanese Master Simon petersano but given petrazano's expertise in Fresco painting a technique that Caravaggio never really mastered it seems unlikely that he paid more than a rudimentary attention to his studies end quote writes the Britannica so yes he did an apprenticeship with this small town Master but he actually didn't really pick up anything from him since he never actually used any of the techniques that he used so at the age of 21 he moved to Rome also known as the epicenter of Arts at the time just like many other aspiring artists at the time hungry to learn and work in this creative field unfortunately he struggled for a while at first he focused his work on still life of fruit and flowers which then evolved into half-length portraits like his other painting the boy bitten by a lizard as these were artworks that would sell commonly on the streets it wasn't what he wanted to be doing but it was what paid the bills at the time which is very inspirational it's Hustle but shortly after he had a big break Cardinal Francesco Del Monte a man of great importance at the time saw caravaggio's work and saw talent and potential in him he subsequently took him into his own home with a powerful and reputable connection now Caravaggio started getting his first commission works and he did such an amazing job in fact that this skyrocketed his career almost overnight he was now pretty much considered a celebrity painter so yeah things were going well for him Caravaggio was in Rome getting lots of work and getting through these commissions at a lightning speed he loved to work but he also loved to party and he really did love to party quote after a fortnight's work he will Swagger about for a month or two with his sword at his side and a servant following him from one ball court to the next ever ready to engage in a fight or argument with a result that it is most awkward to get along with him end quote according to one of his biographers and yes sores were illegal at the time much like guns are so you had to have a permit to carry them which Caravaggio did not he was arrested several times for all kinds of assaults disordences and disruptions a small list included quote slashing the cloak of an adversary throwing a plate of artichokes at a waiter scarring a guard and abusing the police and quote says the national gallery.org so yeah he was a bit of a wild one in 1606 he went as far as sword fighting a man over a very mundane argument apparently about a game or a woman and ended up stabbing him the man had succumbed to his wounds and Caravaggio was now labeled a murderer instead of being arrested he instead fled from Rome in hopes that he would soon be pardoned for his crimes as he had a plan in mind and caravaggio's short temper and spontaneity did not stop at his nightlife he would paint directly onto the canvas without any sort of preparation he would a lot of times abandon a painting altogether if it wasn't churning out as well as he wanted and he would just paint another right on top of it at least he recycled canvases you know He was largely criticized and judged for using common people with quote irregular rough and characterful faces end quote as models for the biblical saints that he would paint and put them into very modern surroundings or well modern for that time a lot of critics would say that he would do this deliberately in order to make his viewers feel like they were taking part in the biblical events of the pieces much like in his supper at a Mouse painting curvature as you'll recall had fled to Malta where he tried to become a knight in order to receive a pardon from the pope back in Rome he had offered a painting of the beheading of Saint John as a bribe to get in and although this did work and he did get accepted into Knighthood his actual plan didn't really work out for him as he simply could not stop himself from getting into fights with other Knights and this subsequently got him in prison but then he escaped from prison and was merrily expelled from the night's order so that was his adventures in Malta while he was out fighting more people in bars in Sicily some very important friends of his back in Rome because as you'll remember he was still a celebrity painter and very very highly regarded back in Rome his friends managed to get a pardon from the pope for Caravaggio and he was now allowed to return there so Caravaggio packed all of his things onto a ship that actually ended up sailing off without him as he was yet again arrested for a petty crime so now shipless and possessionless Caravaggio bought his way out of jail and set off for Rome along the coast he ended up Contracting an illness along the way that was most probably malaria and after a few days in 1610 alone and feverish he died caravaggio's success was often clouded by his personal life and criminal background having made many or most actually of his compelling works and being at the peak of his career when he was a fugitive from the law he was also suspected to be gay which further added to his rebellious and Outsider Persona that people saw him as most critics attribute caravaggio's almost claustrophobic compositions and theatrically brute depictions in his paintings to his upbringing in Malta at the time after the plague as you'll recall Malta was dominated by a Catholic Revival Archbishop that instilled the ideologies of poverty and humility in the image of Jesus Christ as a form of repenting the parish from the abyss of sin quote that was that nasty nasty plague so basically he was telling everyone in the parish that they had fallen into an abyss of sin which is why God had put the plague down on them and the only way from there for them to repent themselves was to live life more in the image of Jesus as a poor humble man this Archbishop Charles boromeo liked art that resembled quote more visceral and naturalistic traditions of folk art end quote growing up around these religious and artistic influences were probably what began to shape caravaggio's work into what we know it as today that's pretty much it for the life of Caravaggio himself a very intense deranged and tumultuous life he led where he somehow managed to find enough down time to make all these incredible paintings that he did with that said let's get into the painting I'm redrawing today bakus if you'll recall I mentioned earlier that when Caravaggio initially moved to Rome he had it rough and did a series of half-length portraits such as boy with a basket of fruit and of course boy bitten by a lizard how could we forget and Bacchus was part of this era of portraits that Caravaggio painted this one in particular was commissioned by his Patron Cardinal Del Monte as a gift for the Grand Duke of Tuscany Ferdinand the first and was painted between 1596 and 1597. a little backstory in case you don't know Bacchus AKA Dionysus is the Greco-Roman God of fruitfulness and vegetation quote especially known as a god of wine and ecstasy end quote as written by the Britannica so he's that Vino God that we all love he is usually depicted with an ivy wreath that tirsus which was just a staff and the canferos a two-handled goblet in early art he was depicted as a bearded man like most of the Gods quote but later was portrayed as youthful and effeminate end quote like Caravaggio did in his paintings in the painting varcus is offering the viewer a glass of wine with his left hand which led most people to believe that Caravaggio used a mirror and his own reflection for this piece and apparently he did have a very complex setup of mirrors in his Studios to paint his subjects onto the canvas and did very often use himself as reference like in a lot of his paintings there is no background behind Bacchus King Caravaggio liked to focus his paintings on the humanity of the subject although he is a god rather than on flamboyant detailing so very very different from the painting that I did before this one which was the swing which was in a Rococo style which very much focused on flamboyant detailing interestingly I found out that a recent restoration of the painting showed quote the outline of a man's face in the jug of wine in the foreground that is believed to be the self-portrait of the artist end quote as established earlier Caravaggio was no stranger to painting over the top of unfruitful paintings and sketches so this is probably what happened here he probably did a self-portrait of himself in the corner of the canvas and then ended up just painting Bacchus on top of it which I think is really cool caravaggio.org explains that quote caravaggio's inspiration was one of the many surviving statues of the emperor Hadrian's beloved antinos who was often represented as Bacchus end quote and that quote the pose seems derived from a frescoed Bacchus painted by Federico zuccaro during 1584 and 1585 in a Lunette in the studio of his house in Florence and quote as you can see even the great masters of art used lots of reference from other artists including sculptures and sketches from each other to create their big beautiful paintings caravaggio.net also describes the painting as quote Bacchus in his youth relaxing while holding a goblet of wine and inviting the viewer to partake in drinking with him he's wearing a draped robe and Vine leaves and grapes in his hair end quote there are also some nods to his still life era back in the day with the fruit bowl and the Goblet of wine in the foreground with some hints of quote corruption and quote as caravaggio.org puts it such as the spoiled apple with the Wormhole and the overripe pomegranate with a fruit bursting out of it I actually did not include this quote corruption fruit in my version of events because I thought they were just like Shadows from what I could tell but apparently there are lots of holes in the fruit and things like that but all my fruit is nice and ripe and fresh other than that the painting is quite straightforward and was one of the first paintings to jump start caravaggio's celebrity paint her career in the 16th century so yes as you can see I tried to keep it very one-to-one in my redraw of course adding my own stylistic flares to it I feel like I made him look even more youthful and jovial but I really just like you know drawing really youthful and plump face faces when I went into this I was like oh this one's going to be nice and quick it's just a portrait it's my creme de La Creme but um very quickly I realized how wrong I was because of all of the fruits that I had to render and all of these little drapes of clothing that I had to draw and all of the little drapes and folds of clothing that he's got going on so that was a lot of rendering that I had to do that I wasn't that wasn't immediately clear to the naked eye so I was God yeah it took me a lot longer than I was expecting but it was very fun to do there was a lot of leaves so I got to practice all of my leaf drawings and doing a lot of like drawings of little Vines and so many grapes to render I thought it'd be a great idea to add a a light source to every single grape and do lighting and shadows to all of them and also some Rim lighting because why not and other than that it was actually quite a fun painting it was a very colorful had a lot of different um colors on the leaves and the fruits and stuff so it was quite new to the series because I feel like a lot of the paintings I do on the series end up being quite muted and dark and I got to have a lot of fun with colors in this one as you can see here I was just rendering the the fruit bowl in the foreground and um just kind of going wild with um all the little details because there's a lot of textures at play here there's all these kind of crunchy leaves and these more juicy leaves and then there's the grapes and then there's the different fruits and and obviously all the the Fabrics in the background so it was definitely a lot of fun trying to render and depict all of these different textures in this painting and as you saw earlier I did use a various different brushes for this I don't usually use any other brush except my round wet sketch brush from Blue Satan's brush set and I actually used the Nico roll brush in this one quite a lot because I wanted to include those little Textures in the table that's in the foreground in the background as well and I ended up using it for a lot of shading I did used to use a Nico roll brush quite a lot a few years back in my digital art and then I just stopped using it for some reason but using it in this piece actually reminded me that I really like it so I think that the effect that I gave to the shadows and stuff on the table ended up looking really cool so yeah I also had a lot of glass to render for this piece which I was very grateful for all of the recent drawings that I've been doing of just different flowers and bouquets of flowers and glass jars because um that in in part gave me a lot of practice for all of the glass I had to render in this and close to the end here I wanted to add a little bit of Rim lighting to him or some backlighting because I thought that he was being a little bit swallowed by the background and I wanted to kind of make him pop a little bit more so this is the final version of my redraw of bakus by Caravaggio I really really enjoy this one it's so bright and so colorful and I'm really happy with my rendition of it it's obviously got my little flares of my style let me know which bit was your favorite to watch me render it definitely had a lot of different elements that I had fun playing around with and um yeah thank you so much for watching me redraw this classical painting thank you so much for watching I really hope you enjoyed it let me know your thoughts on this guy's crazy crazy life um would you would you want to be friends with him I don't think I would be as per usual all the links to everything are in the description including my online shop where I sell prints of the drawings that I do on this series they have like gold and like really pretty metallic foils on them I've got all of them printed out so far except for this one in this video obviously but yeah you can find them on my shop my shop is actually closed until the first of November but once it's the first November it will be open and I'll be taking Christmas orders link down there I'll be doing yet another poll over on my patreon so that my patients can pick which one I'll do for the next episode so if you'd like to sign up to the lowest tier which is the one that gets your access to all the polls and everything that link will be in the description it's the Cherry tears and thank you so much for watching I hope you enjoyed and I will see you guys in my next video bye-bye