"I would have been Poussin, if I'd had a choice, in another time".
(Cy Twombly)
The first exhibition of Twombly's work that I ever visited was at the Tate Modern during the Summer of 2008: subtitled Cycles and Seasons it was both comprehensive and chronological, providing the viewer with a thoroughly substantial account of the artist's life and the prominent themes that dominate his work. My lasting impressions of this exhibition recall an artist renown for his intense engagement with light, alongside a love of poetry and a deep fascination with classical mythology. So abundant are the classical references throughout Twombly's work, I remember at the time wishing this was subject that I had at least been taught to some degree at school. Three years later, a different exhibition and once again there I was recognising that a classical knowledge (which whilst by no means a necessity), would nevertheless still be a very illuminating tool for understanding much of Twombly's work.
The current exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery is a very different exploration of Twombly's work to the one that the Tate held three years ago. This exhibition uses continual juxtaposition as the tool by which to compare and contrast the work of the twentieth-century American artist, Twombly, with that of the seventeenth-century French classicist painter Nicholas Poussin, an artist whom Twombly was greatly inspired by. Both Twombly and Poussin spent large periods of their working lives in Italy and beyond this their work shares in common, the study and revivification of subjects such as; antiquity, ancient history, classical mythology and the imaginary, idealised realm of Arcadia.
Theatricality
The concept of arcadia formed the focal point of this exhibition, however, the room that I found the most intriguing was one titled Anxiety and theatricality.
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| The Triumph of David, 1631 -33 |
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| Herodiade, 1960 |
Both The Triumph of David and Herodiade deal with biblical stories of beheading. Poussin's painting depicts a triumphant David returning with the head of the giant Goliath whom he has slain. Tom Lubbock writes of the scene:"The parade comes home, passes through the picture. The young hero carries the enemy's head on a pole. The crowds point and cheer. The stage is all set" (the italic emphasis is mine). Lubbock acknowledges that Poussin's painting is all about performance and spectacle and the same can be said for Twombly's Herodiade: the stairs to the top left of the canvas suggest the physical idea of a stage set. Lubbock makes an interesting observation about The Triumph of David when he compares the isolated architectural fragment at the bottom left of the canvas with the only other isolated object in the picture, Golaith's head. He argues that:"[this] picture relates the felling of the enemy to the fall of the state, and locks catastrophe into the hour of triumph". The title for Twombly's painting Herodiade is taken from an unfinished poem by the French symbolist writer Stéphane Mallarmé and the viewer is able to make out the words: "I have known the nakedness of my scattered dreams" scribbled onto the canvas. The abstract smearing of red paint across the canvas by Twombly and its obvious association with blood and gore, links the painting with Poussin's depiction of a bloody spectacle, although as one would expect Poussin's representation is far more contained. His concern lies with the aftermath of the event as opposed to its actuality.
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| Hero and Leandro, 1985 |
Twombly's expressive, energetic and hugely symbolic use of colour, frequently contrasts with large, white spaces on his canvases and it is this element of his work that has always held the greatest appeal for me. Hero and Leandro is a painting that was also displayed as part of the Tate's exhibition and it reflects Twombly's fascination with water that grew particularly during the 1980s as he spent more time in Gaete, an Italian medieval port town on the Tyrrhenian Sea. In this current exhibition, Hero and Leandro is displayed in a room titled Venus and Eros and the painting itself is inspired by a classical legend of doomed love. According to the legend, Leandro drowned whilst swimming across the Hellespont to meet his lover Hero, who then threw herself into the sea. Twombly poignantly evokes this tragic subject matter by using waves of evanescent brushstrokes and dribbles of paint. His vibrant use of reds and pinks represent the fragility of human form, being literally smothered and suffocated by the sea of white paint.
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| Quattro Stagioni, 1993-5 |
The climax of this exhibition comes (somewhat predictably) with Twombly’s famous series of paintings which depict the changing seasons, Quattro Stagionio. However, Twombly's masterpieces wholeheartedly deserve their place at the finale of this exhibition and are interestingly placed in comparison with photographic replications of Poussin's similar series: The Four Seasons. Twombly's paintings loosely follow the traditional character of each season and age, as aptly set forth in Keat's poem The Human Seasons: Spring is lusty, summer sensual, autumn content to be idle, winter sees death approaching. Whilst Primavera (spring) features energetic strokes of red and yellow that create a suitably uplifting sense of vitality and new life, Estate (summer) is much more mellow with its use of whites, creams and yellows which lean towards both the peace and tranquillity associated with a lazy summer afternoon, but also I would argue, with the notion of a stifling and oppressive heat represented by the presence of a white mist across the painting. Autonno (autumn) is like Primavera with its exuberant use of rich colours, except this time there are a whole multitude of new colours such as browns, greens and purples, which (presented as they are alongside the bare branches Twombly has also painted) create a vivid sense that autumn is the season when nature is stripped of its colour. The grapes which feature to the left of the canvas relate specifically to the wine festival of Bassanio and echo Poussin's similar depiction of grapes in his Autumn canvas. Twombly's Inverno (winter) also alludes to Poussin's earlier representation of the seasons, through its depiction of curved, boat-like forms in black paint. According to Nicholas Cullinan and Simon Bolitho, "Inverno is the most sparse of all Twombly's seasons, with words disappearing beneath a mist of translucent white paint, and the gathering darkness relieved only by flares of yellow and green paint." I would argue though that the flares of yellow and green paint hardly serve to "relieve" the gathering darkness and that Twombly's depiction of winter is thoroughly bleak and unforgiving.
Whilst the artistic style of Nicholas Poussin and Cy Twombly could hardly be more different; the subject matter and inspirations of both artists, were remarkably similar. Lubbock acknowledges that Poussin's paintings of "high" subjects from the Bible; mythology, ancient history and epic poetry "were images for private study, for an intellectual elite, not for church and state. But their patient deliberation can accumulate a massive force." Classical references aside, Twombly's highly abstract work which frequently features undecipherable scrawls, can be hard to understand at times. However, this ingenious positioning of Twombly's work alongside Poussin's, allows the work of the American artist to be understood and viewed in a thoroughly, original and informative context.
