Yesterday morning I had to forcibly drag myself out of bed so that I could venture out to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Once there, I wandered around in a sleepy daze for a good half hour; the last time I went to this particular museum was nearly four years ago and it was as though the place had become brand new in the meanwhile. The hour was early enough that my view of other visitors were sparse. I spent a good amount of time in a little white room surrounded by the Four Seasons, occasionally interrupted by the security guard. These four statues were created by an unknown French sculptor between 1770-1790, and I was particularly drawn to Bacchus as the personification of Autumn. Each statue stands in its own corner, converting the room into a four-way altar that distinguishes the four seasons from each other through separation. In one corner, Saturn cloaks himself as Winter. In another, Flora holds up a garland of flowers as Spring. Across from her is Ceres, brandishing her grain and sickle as Summer. And finally is Bacchus himself, who holds his customary grapes as Autumn.

Bacchus, made from marble, stands out from the stark white walls due to the browns of aged ivory staining every crevice. It accentuates its age and creates a sort of time vacuum from which Bacchus seems to have stepped out into the more futuristic white. Furthermore, the aged ivory tones down the cold detached white of the walls to make the room more comfortable. It makes Bacchus more of a remnant of the past than a current deity, because the environment is devoid of anything other than the other seasons. There is nothing else.

I find it interesting that Bacchus was chosen to personify Autumn, particularly because autumn is primarily a season of death. Pluto, or Hades, would have been the much more obvious choice whereas Bacchus, or Dionysus, would have been infinitely more suited for winter, the season of rebirth and hibernation (amongst other things of Bacchus, like madness. And though I digress, the symbolism between December 25th as Christ's birthday and Bacchus as a Christ-figure himself would have been even more staggering.) I suspect that it's the wine imagery that inspired the artist to represent Bacchus instead, mostly as a symbol for the harvest or at least the aftermath. The figure of Bacchus as a young boy here is equally as interesting; does the artist think of autumn as a young season? I find that curious, especially when the stereotypes of spring and summer are that they are youth personified.