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Friday Slide Show: Doré's Vase
30 May 2025
We have long admired Le Poème de la Vigne (The Vintage) by Gustave Doré. We would sit next to it outside the de Young museum to admire the hilarious theatrics of its 58 cherubs wrestling with various insects assaulting the 11-foot tall vase, which happens to be a generous 22 feet in circumference.
We employed a few of the figures on our business card to illustrate various services. How could we not?
After all, the subject is winemaking. Or, to put it in a more abstract sense, the subject is the act of creation. Wrestling with the varmints, achieving ecstasy.
Look carefully as you walk around and you'll find Bacchus, the god of wine; Silenus, the drunken caretaker of Bacchus; the goddess Diana, lover of the woods and wild things; satyrs attending to Bacchus; and more.
These images were JPEGs taken in 1999 with a Nikon 900. It was all we had at the time. And, no doubt, a bottle of wine.
Our first thought was to do them as black and whites but with a greenish color cast. The patina at one time was green. It has lately been brown.
But we succumbed to color.
Then this morning, we gave black-and-white another short, this time without a color cast. And we liked it. It felt more 19th century than 21st century trying to be relevant. See what you think:
The vase was originally created for the Paris World's Fair in 1878. But it has sat, in the fog and sun, no ticket required, here in Golden Gate park for longer than we can remember.
Or perhaps that is the wine talking.
