1704
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
The Four Festivals is a 1704 by Claude Gillot, a Baroque work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a wild party in the woods. Naked and half-dressed people dance around a stone altar. Muscular goat-men with grinning faces peek from the trees. Flowers and vines frame the scene like a living picture. This is one of four prints that celebrate old nature gods. The caption says the party is being crashed by satyrs—mythical creatures who love chaos. Gillot made these prints early in his career, before he became known for designing theater sets. To see how other artists drew myth parties, look up *France, 18th century*.
This depiction of the festival of Diana, Roman goddess of forests and animals, accompanies three other scenes glorifying the nature gods Faunus, Bacchus, and Pan. In each print a frame of flourishing vegetation surrounds nude and semi-nude figures who frolic around an altar with a bust to the god. The caption below the Festival of Diana declares that this celebration is being "troubled by satyrs," whose muscular, goat-legged bodies and leering faces appear at either edge of the wooded grove.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Claude Gillot (April 27, 1673 – May 4, 1722) was a French painter, printmaker, and illustrator, best known as the master of Watteau and Lancret.
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