Rubens’s Dionysian Environments: An Ecocritical Approach WITH Jesús Muñoz Morcillo 

In this Research and Academic Program lecture, Jesús Muñoz Morcillo (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany / Michael Ann Holly Fellow) discusses Peter Paul Rubens’s use of Dionysian and materialistic traditions, focusing on their connection to nature. Scholars assume that Rubens’s visual references to Dionysian motifs are related to his stay in Rome from 1600 to 1608, but his compositions of wet, wild, and vibrant environments surrounding Bacchic scenes transcend visual references to geographic archetypes. Indeed, Rubens draws on specific ancient sources, including Euripides, Propertius, Nonnos of Panopolis and Epicurean natural philosophy. This lecture will demonstrate an ecocritical comparison of Rubens’s Bacchic motifs within his landscape paintings to elucidate how his entanglements of myth and nature reflected a nuanced and complex relationship to ancient and early-modern philosophy.

Presented in person in the Clark auditorium. A 5 pm reception in the Manton Research Center reading room precedes the event.

Image: Peter Paul Rubens, Dance of Mythological Figures and Villagers, 1635, oil on panel. Museo del Prado, Inv. P001691. Photo: Museo del Prado.