A maenad (female follower of Dionysus), crowned with ivy and wielding her thyrsus. Fragment of an Attic red-figure cup by the painter Macron; ca. 480 BCE. Now in the Louvre.
Maenads from a Byzantine Hanging with the Heads of a Dynasian Group, 400- 700, @metmuseum
Maenads were the female attendants of the god of wine, Dionysis. They were supposed to have been women who had left their homes and families to roam forests and mountains, singing and dancing. Although there are negative connotations associated with the maenads emphasizing their state of rapture with song and wine, I have alwasy thought of the maenad as a symbol of women’s liberation. They are among my favorite female characters from antiquity. This tapestry, interestingly enough, made during the Byzantine period is a great example of the continuity of the cultural heritage of the pan-Mediterranean culture that spanned many centuries and continents.
Dionysus, the god of wine, vegetation, festivity, and on a darker note, madness and frenzy. Here we see our jovial deity riding a leopard and wearing a leopard skin, holding aloft his sacred wine chalice in one hand, and his pine cone tipped staff “Thyrsus”. Below him dance his attendants in the cult of Dionysus, the sileni,satyr, centaur, woman dancer, and bull and woman, with a centaur playing the two head flute pip (AULOS) further back. In the upper right hand background we can see hanging grapes for the wine, and below; a darker representation of Dionysus; the mad frenzy. Here we see the MAENADs;(“raving ones" ), women followers who drink and dance into violent frenzies. In Euripedes play, "the Bacchae”, the Maenads, in a state of delusion, tear apart their own king Pentheus, limb from limb, thinking him a lion. Even poor Orpheus, the greatest lyre player of all, was torn apart when he refused to play for them in a state of mourning after returning from the underworld without his wife, Eurydice).
If you've been following along for the last 6 weeks, then you get a free cup of ambrosia! cheers! I’m currently deciding what to do next, but it will either be “heroes and monsters" or "the Tragedies.” So please stay tuned for lots more artwork in the coming weeks and months. which i’m hoping to compile into a book later in the year! ;)
And as always, if you want to share this image I would appreciate it!
In the worship of Dionysus, his female followers lived with each other while the male presence was prohibited. These women represented the goddesses who had been united with the gods. The concept of ‘sacred fury’ characterized Maenads, who were also known as Bacchae. Blatant meant angry and not insane in the case of Maenads. Maenads were running wearing long dresses while they were carrying thyrsus, a reed wrapped with ivy or vine leaves, they were also wearing ivy leaves on their heads. Flutes and drums accompanied the ecstatic and wild Maenads as they were dancing to honour their lord, Dionysus. Dionysus, a god of nature and of the deep forests, like the celtic Cernunnos, orgiastic and rejuvenating.
After a night of revelry on the slopes of Mt. Parnassus, exhausted Maenads collapse in the mountain town of Amphissa, where the local women take care of them. Painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema,1887.
