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Bacchus and Ceres

Jacques de Gheyn II

1597

ink

paper

From the collection of National Gallery of Art

Renaissance Renaissance Mythology

Dominant colour

Bacchus and Ceres is a 1597 ink by Jacques de Gheyn II, a Renaissance work, held at National Gallery of Art.

Who painted this?: Jacques de Gheyn II
When & what style?: 1597 · Renaissance
Where can I see it?: National Gallery of Art

About this work

This sketch shows two figures tangled in a dark, swirling space. One looks like a woman with long hair, slumped forward, while the other is a bearded man with a crown of leaves. Their clothes are rough, almost like they’re made of brushstrokes. The background is packed with messy lines, like tangled vines or storm clouds. The artist used a technique called *cross-hatching*—lots of crisscrossed lines to create shadows and texture. The paper even has extra marks from another hand later on. Check out cross-hatching to see how artists build depth with just lines.