Bas Relief In Plaster, "bacchanale", Early 20th Century

Bas relief in plaster, "Bacchanalia of children. The sacrifice of the goat", very cheerful and lively festive atmosphere created by the expressions of the faces and positions of the bodies of the characters. The theme of children with goats is one of the commonplaces in the history of sculpture. It describes the sacrifice of a goat: garlanded and accompanied by a procession of children and small satyrs bearing offerings it is led to a smoking altar. This scene is taken directly from the stories of Virgil (Georgics, II, 380) and Ovid (Metamorphoses, XV, 111 and Fasti I 340), the latter mentioning either a goat or a goat.

Do these marmots in freedom depict a childhood of humanity uninhibited, without original sin?
Bacchanal and bachic cult thus passes for a childhood of religion, an irresponsible game.
 There is certainly the pleasure of painting this small humanity in freedom, imitating adults, but this continuation of geniuses and loves, in the sixteenth century is gradually tinged with a philosophical conception of the world, its distancing. It is a way to describe the serious world of adults, with its passions of all kinds, its follies and its overflows or its well-ordered activities through the games of children left to them-even: we are only children who play one game or another when we believe that we are acting with responsibility and relevance, thinking that the fate of the world depends on our important activities. 
The viewer of these bas-reliefs could therefore find a kind of moral caricature of humanity. The Christian could even interpret these deranged children left to themselves as a people who had not yet known the «True God»
 
Early 20th century
France