This paintings is huge: over three metres tall and nearly five wide. If you stand in front of it, it will dwarf you. It is one of three, painted on the same scale, so the whole experience is meant to be overwhelming. The trick is to see the colour and shapes, and to feel the texture of the pigment, in some kind of metaphoric manner that links to the title – in this case to the classical god of wine, Bacchus or Dionysus. Massive loops of red swoop and rise in invigorating circular movements – intoxicating and ecstatic. They were made with a brush attached to a long pole or broom handle. Part of the visual attraction of these rhythmic, pulsing arcs is to see how the brush, fully loaded, starts with thick, saturated colour which gradually fades before the brush is dipped again. By contrast drips of the same paint run downwards reminding us of gravity and hinting that this dance can’t last or comes at a price. To an extent the artist would not have been in control of exactly how these drips fell, though we should bear in mind it was his choice to thin the paint before he applied it, knowing that this is what would happen.
Twombly himself was an American artist who lived most of his life in Rome, and often responded to the world of classical mythology in his abstract works. To my mind he was able to produce paintings that suggest strongly that the old gods, with all their mischief and malevolence, are very much alive. In this case he offered us two Greek epithets as alternative ways of reading these works. The first is ‘Psilax’ – literally meaning ‘wings’ or ‘winged’ but suggesting a sense of uplifting inspiration and energy; the second is ‘Mainomenos’ meaning crazed, furious and violent. The first would logically link to wine and its liberating, loosening effects on human inhibition and creativity. The second is obviously more disturbing. In this scenario the drips take on a different mien altogether: this vivid red is blood. I’m reminded of Yeats’ phrase from his poem The Second Coming, ‘the blood dimmed tide is loosed’ and the terrible fate of Pentheus, a haplessly curious young fellow who wanted to watch what Dionysus’ followers got up to and was mercilessly ripped to pieces by a group of Bacchantes who mistook him in their frenzy for a deer.
