Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Silenus.
The gallery
Drunken Silenus
Jusepe de Ribera, 1626
Ribera's Capodimonte canvas: the aged companion of Dionysus sprawls naked and laughing while satyrs crown him with vine — Silenus as flesh, wine, and prophecy.
Drunken Silenus
Anthony van Dyck, c. 1620
Van Dyck's Pushkin painting: Silenus supported by satyrs in a swirl of wine-skin and flesh — the tutor of Bacchus too drunk to stand alone.
Bacchanalia
Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1615
Rubens fills the Pushkin canvas with Silenus at the center of the revel — heavy, crowned, and half-asleep amid nymphs and goats.
In play
Silenus
The drunken prophet who rides an ass beside Dionysus — and who told Midas that never to have been born is best — remains the satyr elder of European painting and proverb.
Midas
Midas' golden touch begins with catching Silenus: the king returns Dionysus' tutor and is granted the wish that ruins him — Silenus as the spark of the Phrygian moral.