BACCHUS, OR THE DRUNKS

Watercolor and pastel on paper - Mixed technique.

26x21 cm.

Bacchus, or the drunks, is a series dedicated to human vices. From dependence on alcohol or illegal drugs, to the very dependence on a cell phone. Vices are contrary to virtue, and also to serenity. As Heidegger postulates, to use things with serenity, in order to make them worthwhile for our benefit and not fall under their destructive influence. Everything can be good or bad depending on the extent to which it is used. Vices are dependence, when the thing takes over the freedom of the human being to make it its slave, when the human being becomes the servant and not the master of things. Today we often live in a culture of vice, in which the media itself, with a clear intention of encouraging a consumption necessary to maintain order, incite not to put the brakes on things. Malthus argued that inciting vice was a way of sustaining capitalism. Making people lose their freedom of choice, leading a life of little virtue, is the most efficient way of making them fall into excessive consumption, which moves the wheel of a capitalism that is becoming less and less productive and work-oriented, and increasingly financial, resembling at times typical games of chance.