Shop art print and framed art La dérision de Noé ou L'ivresse de Noe by Giovanni Bellini

The Drunkenness of Noah is a painting by the Venetian artist Giovanni Bellini, executed around 1515. The work is on display at the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie in Besançon following a bequest from Jean Gigoux in 1894. An old man is sleeping naked. A cup and a bunch of grapes are in the foreground. A vineyard forms the background. These three elements evoke wine. The man appears to be drunk. Three young men are standing next to him. The two figures to the side are looking away, while the old man's nakedness is concealed by a red sheet. The figure in the centre, on the other hand, is laughing as he looks at the old man. The man lying down is Noah. He is surrounded by his three sons, Ham in the centre and Shem and Japheth at the sides. Shem and Japheth are the good sons, respecting their fathers by hiding their nakedness and looking away. Ham, on the other hand, mocks his father, for which he and his descendants, the Canaanites, are cursed (see: The Curse of Ham). The organisation of the picture is simple. It is symmetrical, with the good sons on the sides and the bad in the centre. This arrangement lends a monumental quality to the work, reinforced by the horizontality of the composition. The work refers to a passage in Genesis that recounts Noah's drunkenness: - GENESIS (IX:20-27) Themes from the Old Testament are often used as prefigurations of the New Testament. The mockery of Ham is reminiscent of the various taunts and insults directed at Christ by Roman [...]

 

This artwork is a painting from the renaissance period. It belongs to the italian renaissance style.

 

« La dérision de Noé ou L'ivresse de Noe » is kept at Musee des Beaux-Arts et d'Archeologie, Besançon, France.

 

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