This image is interesting in both its subject and its print technique.  From a distance, it resembles a watercolor or aquatint.  However, when you lean in closer, faint etched lines, along with some engraving around the border, are visible.  Janinet varied his use of tools to create tonal variety giving an illusion of brush blending.  Why did the artist combine these methods in this particular print? 

Etching allows a freedom of movement and form which engraving inhibits, and the freedom of the technique is a parallel for sexual license in this image.  By allowing desire and emotion to be translated onto the canvas or plate through a fluid physical movement, brushwork and etching become libertine through their sinuous qualities.  Replace the word sinuous with haphazard, beautiful, disordered, or erotic, and The Sleep of Ariadne can be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to induce desire. 

The myth of Ariadne is one of love and death.  In this print, she is depicted between two worlds, sleeping on earth in love and wedded to Dionysus in death.  The colors accentuate her beauty, and her nudity accentuates her erotic vulnerability. 

Natacha Dockery