Quattro stagioni I. Estate 1994

Cy Twombly made this painting, "Quattro Stagioni I. Estate," with house paint on canvas, somewhere between writing and drawing. I can imagine Twombly, lost in thought, making marks, adding and subtracting, smearing paint, his movements free, scribbling like a child, yet somehow, through sheer force of feeling, conjuring a sensation of withering summer heat. Look at the way he lets the yellow paint drip down the canvas, thin like watery lemonade, a thick column of burning sunlight. Then notice how, at the bottom, the raw, red marks of the paint almost seem to bleed onto the surface, like the stain of blood or juice. I think of Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler and all those painters who made marks that look like poems. Painting is just a bunch of conversations between artists across time, where we keep trying to find a way to make feeling visible.