THE FEAST OF THE GODS

Bijlert stayed in Rome in the early 1620s and, like his fellow students in Utrecht, Ter Brugghen, Honthorst or Baburen, was impressed by the art of Caravaggio. However, the considerable favour enjoyed by the Italian painter did not last. His influence had almost disappeared by 1630, when Bijlert turned to classicism.

The frieze composition, the daytime brightness, the light, low-contrast colours respond to this aesthetic shift. However, the satyr dancing in front of the table and the Bacchus lying in the foreground pressing a bunch of grapes above his mouth recall, in a sweetened way, the naturalism of Caravaggio: ochre-tinted flesh, bodies seen up close in unorthodox attitudes. On Olympus, the gods are gathered for a banquet. On the left stand Minerva, Diana, Mars and Venus accompanied by Cupid. Flora, the goddess of spring, is behind them. Crowned Apollo, identifiable by his lyre, presides over the centre of the table. Further on, we recognise Hercules with his club and Neptune with his trident. Some important gods are missing, probably because the canvas has been cut. The presence of Juno's peacock suggests this. The theme was popular in Holland; Goltzius's engraving, The Marriage of Psyche and Cupid, after Spranger, triggered an abundant production of works illustrating the Feast of the Gods. In the context of the Reformation, in which the commission for temples had disappeared, the artist found a stratagem to paint a Christlike Last Supper under the cover of a mythological subject.

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