[1] Lines have a great effect on paintings. They give great emphasis. There’s a line in Alkman…’Leaving Paphos ringed with waves…’ […] It’s central to me. I’m a Mediterranean painter.
—Cy Twombly
I have seen paintings of Cy Twombly at MOMA, New York, TATE Gallery in London and in Rome. But it was after the exhibition: “CY: TWOMBLY: Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves” at the Gagosian Gallery in Athens that I saw in October 2009 that I was so enchanted of his work that I started studying this great artist!
[2] Cy Twombly, an American artist, born in Lexinghton, Virgina, USA, on the 28th April 1928 with the name Edwin Parker Twombly, Jr. He died at the age of 83 on July 5th 2011, in Rome. He lived his life since 1957 in Italy.
He is known for his paintings, sculpture and calligraphy. His experience in the army as a cryptographist has an influence to his work [2]. Themes of his work often refer to history and mythology. He is described as an Abstract Expressionist that can also be part of the Minimalism, the Pop Art and Conceptualism [2]. His painting artistic language is poetic and often characterized by scripts and words in Greek and Italian language. [3] Manchester E. says ‘Throughout his career, Twombly’s paintings have been based on two components – line and paint.’
Cy Twombly - Quattro Stagioni: Autunno, From Quattro Stagioni (A Painting in Four Parts), Acrylic paint, oil paint, crayon and graphite on canvas, 3136 x 2150 x 35 mm , Tate, 1993–5
Cy Twombly often worked on a theme in series of paintings. The ‘Quattro Stagioni’, The Four Seasons, subtitled as ‘A Painting in Four Parts’ [3], is a work of two cycles of four paintings. The first cycle belongs to the MOMA Museum of New York and the second cycle in the Tate Gallery in London. The artist allows the colors he applied on his canvas to dribble down creating vertical lines on a cream- colored gesso. The wine harvesting in Bassano in Teverina was the inspiration for this cycle of paintings beginning with the season autumn. He printed the title of the painting in capitals with brown color dripping down. The Mediterranean light is emphasized in a brilliant way by imposes of the reds, browns, deep greens, yellow, violet and dark blue forms.
On the left side of the painting, the artist used two thick patches of dark brown paint that are smeared with his finger tips upwards and dripping in a linear way downwards. On the same vertical line with the brown patches a deep green form of is dripping also downwards. Branches like of plants, emerge for the second brown muddy patch and two more branches also emerge for the dribbles above the green.
A central mixture of colors shows also red and green color smeared with the artist’s fingers. Horizontal projections like echoes of red color in the right side of the painting give a sense of movement.
Text can be seen but in a fragmental way, except form the words ‘your blood’. These fragments of letters and words are covered and mixed under the dribbles of colors or marks.
References
1. Francis, M. Cy Twombly: leaving Paphos ringed with waves, Gagosian, Athens, 2009
2. Kennedy, R. Cy Twombly 1928-2011: American Artist Who Scribbled a Unique Path, New York Times, July 6, 2011
3. Manchester, E. Cy Twombly
Quattro Stagioni: Autunno 1993–5, Tate Gallery, May 2003
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