Cy Twombly: Lepanto

When Cy Twombly was offered a gallery dedicated to his work at the 2001 Venice Biennale, he chose to create a new work especially for the space, a work that he describes as one painting in twelve parts. For his concept of the project, Twombly turned to the genre of history painting. Before the advent of Modernism in the late 19th century, history painting, which encompassed images from mythology, the bible, and the lives of the saints, as well as scenes from ancient to contemporary history, was considered the highest achievement of the painter´s art. Responding to the exhibition´s locale adjoining the Arsenale shipyard, Twombly chose of his subject the famous 1571 naval battle of Lepanto.

Venice, then an immensely powerful city-state, instigated the formation of an alliance against the Ottoman Empire, which had been attacking its colonies in the eastern Mediterranean and defiling their churches. Brokered by Pope Pius V, the western European alliance consisted of Venice, the Papal States, and Spain, three major Catholic powers of the post-Reformation period. The battle of Lepanto has always been viewed as a turning point in the history of Europe. The Ottoman Empire had heretofore seemed invincible and its fleet was far larger than the alliance´s armada. With more manageable Venetian-designed ships and superior deployment of artillery, the alliance vanquished and burned the Ottoman fleet. Lepanto was the last major sea battle that involved ramming and hand-to-hand fighting on deck. It was the first triumph of Christian Europe over the seemingly all-powerful Islamic Ottoman Empire. It also marked the end of the Mediterranean as the locus of shipping and trade; henceforth, the Atlantic routes to the riches of the American colonies dominated naval activity.

Along with Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, Twombly is one of the three most important American artists who emerged in the 1950s. Raised in Lexington, Virginia, a shrine of the Civil War and home of Virginia Military Institute, he has had a life-long interest in all things military and nautical. Fascinated with the classical world, he has lived primarily in Italy since 1957. His scrawled, scribbled paintings abound with allusions to Greek and Roman mythology and history. For Lepanto, he drew on the many first-hand accounts of the sea turning red with blood and the burning ships glowing gold and crimson in the night sky at the end of the battle.

Twombly arranged Lepanto in a way that is at once symphonic and cinematic with four images of flames and falling leaves presaging, interrupting, and concluding his highly abstract narrative of the battle. The maritime scenes, with their stick-figure images of fighting galleys, become increasingly dense with the final triad drenched in the colors of his rich, limited palette. The lushness of the reds and yellows counterpoints their depiction of flames and blood.

The MFAH presents this exhibition in conjunction with Cy Twombly: Fifty Years of Works on Paper at the Menil Collection, which celebrates the 10th anniversary of its Cy Twombly Gallery this year.

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Cy Twombly: Lepanto
Ort: Caroline Wiess Law Building