bacchus 2, 2020: a reading in seven lenses
Acrylic on paper, 42 × 59.4 cm (16 ½ × 23 ⅜ in). Painting by Yiğit Özen.
At a Glance
The inside of the stemmed goblet on the right opens not onto a drink but onto a dark pit spiralling down; the distance between drinking and being swallowed closes. The goblet is almost as large as the head, its thin long stem not looking able to carry a bowl of this breadth, ready to topple and no one holding it. The vine-leaf crown, the full goblet and the bunch of grapes coming together, the iconography speaks itself: the god of wine is in the scene. But in place of the tradition's young, beautiful, reclining body the body here is grown heavy, collapsed, its colours mixed into one another; it is as if not the god himself but the end of the feast were painted. Caravaggio's Bacchus offers his goblet to the viewer with his fingertips, the fruit before him beginning to rot; here there is no invitation, the goblet is set on the ground, the figure does not even look at it.
At the bottom of the goblet a small blue man stands, arms flung to either side, his height barely reaching the foot of the glass. One reading sees him as the logic of desire; the one who wants is small, the thing wanted large, for a child everything on the table stands at an unreachable height. Another eye counts the same figure a worker waiting at the edge of the banquet table; the large one sits, the small one stands, the two share the same room but then one gets into his car, the other runs for the last bus. The seated figure's mouth is open, its teeth visible, no food eaten in its hand, nor is it after satiety anyway. Whether it laughs or snarls is unclear, because the threshold where exuberance turns to madness is not foreseen in these narratives.
The red crown above is an unbroken maze; the brush set once to the paper has run along fifteen or twenty windings without lifting, paint building at the turning points, the paper's open ground passing between. There was black in the same brush too, one edge of the loops staying dark without mixing. The ground is pale blue and white, an empty coldness without saturation. The face carries turquoise, grass green, yellow, rose pink and purple all in a single region; the paints laid side by side while wet, blurred strips left between, while the lips and eyes are drawn in black, the face's one sharp border. The single pull drawing the outer line of the arm travels close to forty centimetres. The red rounds at the lower edge are of the same brush movement as the flames around the head; what is inside the head and what is spilled at the foot share the same form, the one thing between them the body.
Form and Composition
The upper third fills with winding loops opening outward from the head and sets up the most scattered texture, which pulls the composition's weight upward. As the centre of the head stands three fifths of the way in from the left and the centre of the body two fifths, the axis shifts by a head's width and tips the mass to the left, while the vessel on the right becomes the counterweight.
The upper third is filled with a crown built from winding loops. The loops open outward from the head, all of the same thickness and all looking up. The spread of the crown is twice the head's width; it leans against both side edges, leaving no empty space between, and is cut off at the top edge. This cluster is the painting's most scattered texture and pulls the composition's weight upward. Its centre is not exactly above the head, shifted a hand's width to the left.
The head sits a quarter of the way down from the top. Its width greater than its height, that is an oval flattened at the sides. The units inside it are gathered to the right: eye in the right half, nose in the centre, mouth below the centre and in a horizontal series. Its left half has been left empty, with only wide patches there. This asymmetry turns the face to the right. Beneath the head come a short neck and immediately after it the shoulders; the length of the neck is about a finger, that is, the head has almost settled onto the body.
The body holds the lower left half. Made of large overlapping lobes; the largest of these sits at hip height and widens towards the left edge. A thick, dark contour encircles the boundary of the mass; the inner compartments too are separated from one another with lines of the same thickness. Below, the body flattens and stretches horizontally, leaving a broad base that ends in the lower central region. On the left edge a fringed texture descends from the body; made of short, parallel lines, it goes along the left edge as far as the lower corner.
In the right central region a wide-mouthed vessel stands. Its mouth an ellipse, its interior filled with concentric rings, its body narrowing downward and settling on a base near the bottom edge with a thin foot. Its diameter is close to the width of the head. It touches the right edge of the body but does not ride over it. Beneath the vessel there is a small figure; its arms open upward, its height half that of the vessel and descending towards the bottom edge.
The lower band is closed off with a cluster of round units. The units are small and cramped, with fringed leaves between them. The cluster begins at the lower right corner and stretches towards the lower left corner, covering the bottom edge from end to end. The upper right quarter is largely empty; the ground there is a single layer and the brush marks vertical. The vertical axis does not descend straight from the head down. The centre of the head is about three fifths of the way in from the left, and the centre of the body two fifths; the shift between them is about a head's width. The mass therefore tips to the left, and the vessel on the right stands as a counterweight. Horizontal force gathers in two places: at the elliptical mouth of the vessel and at the sprawling base beneath the body. Neither is at the same height, the mouth of the vessel a hand's width higher.
Colour and Light
There is no saturation in the pale blue white ground and that is its whole job; an empty coldness that makes every colour around it look stronger than it is. While the warmth gathers in the mass of hair above and the fruits below and leaves the middle cool, the cobalt bunch of grapes beneath the goblet sets up a contrast with the saturated red beside it and vibrates at the boundary.
The liquid inside the goblet is a colour between old rose and morello. At its centre there is a black whirlpool, opening towards its edges and rising to pink. The paint there is laid flat and has fully covered the paper; it stands fuller than everything around it. A darker version of the same red repeats in the round fruits along the lower edge, where it descends almost to wine. The mass of hair above is the red in its most scattered state. Long curved strokes of the brush move back and forth between cadmium red and dark maroon, with black mixed between them. The ground shows through between the strokes; the colour does not build a closed area, it stays open like a comb. Because of this the upper band is warm, but light.
The ground is pale blue and white. A broad area laid thin over the paper and looking as if wiped; on the right it verges on green, on the left on grey. There is no saturation within it and that is its whole job; an empty coldness that makes every colour look stronger than it is. The face carries several colours at once in a single region. Its left side turquoise and grass green, the middle of the forehead yellow, its right side rose pink and purple, beneath the chin blue again. The paints were set side by side while wet, passed into one another, and blurred strips are left between them. The lips and eyes are drawn in black; they are the only sharp boundary within the face.
In the body the colours are dimmer. Aubergine purple, dirty lilac, mustard yellow and pale pink; grey has got into all of them. The dark navy purple on the hip is the darkest painted area of the whole surface. The ochre on the shoulder and the yellow over the chest are the only warmed places of the body; outside them the body stays cool. The bunch of grapes beneath the goblet is cobalt blue. On its own, unmixed, opaque. It sets up a contrast with the red right beside it and, because both are saturated, they vibrate at the boundary. This blue is akin to the purples in the body, but far cleaner than they are.
The green is only at the edges. In the lower left corner and beneath the right shoulder of the figure, as thin hatchings. Its colour is herbaceous and light; it is used together with black, and so in some places it turns to a dark moss. The colour of the lower band speaks with the upper band. The fruits and leaves below are of the same red, but set darker and denser; against the open texture of the hair above, here the paint is in a mass. The middle region left between the two reds is cool; the body of the figure and the ground fall there. The warmth is thus gathered at the top and the bottom and weakened in the middle.
No direction has been sought for the light. There are no shadows, not even a darkness left beneath the goblet. In the lower left corner there is a signature thrown in black, standing on its own over the pale blue of the ground.
Iconography, Myth and Title
When the vine wreath, the bunch of grapes and the full goblet appear, iconography closes on the god of wine, but the heavied, collapsed body paints not the god himself but the end of the feast. The goblet whose bottom is not visible shows an endless debt as much as abundance; the open, toothed face carries the threshold at which ecstasy turns into tearing frenzy.
Around the head a crown of red leaves has opened and disperses upward. The face below it is wide; one of the eyes closed, the other indistinct, the mouth open and the teeth lined up. The body is built from coloured masses heaped on top of one another, in a seated state. At the lower right stands a wide stemmed goblet, the liquid inside it dark and hollowing as it turns. Beside the goblet there is a blue cluster, and below, red rounds and leaves cover the ground. The leaves of the crown are not arranged in an orderly way.
The god named already carries here everything sought. A wreath of vine leaves, a bunch of grapes, a full goblet, a laid table. When this triple sign appears together, iconography closes to discussion; the god of wine is on the scene. But the traditional form of the depiction is a young, beautiful, reclining body; the body here, on the other hand, has heavied, collapsed and its colours mingled into one another. It seems that not the god himself but the end of the feast has been painted. The end of the feast is told more than the feast itself; because who has remained is visible there. The mingling of the colours may point to this late hour.
The dark circle inside the goblet turns toward the centre like a whirlpool. The interior of a drinking vessel hollowing like this points to something whose bottom is not visible. In narratives of drunkenness the vessel never empties; this is told both as a sign of abundance and as a curse. The goblet's stem is thin and long, its body wide; it stands ready to topple. Yet no one holds it, it stands on the ground on its own. A vessel whose bottom is not visible can also show an endless debt. This vessel waiting to topple carries the tension of the scene on its own.
The expression on the face draws the scene away from celebration. The mouth is open and the teeth visible, but whether this is a laugh or a snarl is not clear. The narrative of those gathered around the god of wine is always set up on this threshold; after a certain point the ecstasy turns into frenzy and the crowd becomes tearing. The threshold at which ecstasy turns into frenzy is never seen in advance in those narratives. In its best-known scene the worshippers of the god tear a body into pieces with their hands. Around the figure here there is no one, but the red rounds on the ground can be read both like scattered fruit and like other spilled things.
On the left, green, long fibres hang from beside the body; they stand like a bunch of leaves or hair. The same green also appears on the right shoulder. This transition between plant and body calls to mind the stories of the human who turns into a vine. Those stories say that escape too can be a punishment. Beneath the blue cluster right beside the goblet there is a small hand shape, as though reaching from among the grapes.
Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious
The inside of the goblet has opened into a dark pit that spirals downward instead of liquid, and the distance between drinking and being swallowed is thus closed. The figure's laugh, turned towards us with a half-closed eye, invites while keeping at a distance, while the small blue figure at the bottom of the goblet reaching for the large bowl tells the disproportion of desire itself.
The inside of the goblet on the right has turned into a dark pit. There is a dark opening there that spirals downward instead of liquid. Someone looking into a glass normally sees their drink; here they see a hole. The distance between drinking and being swallowed is thus closed. The goblet is stemmed and wide, of a size close to the figure's head. Drawing an object at the same size as a head shows, I think, the weight given to it. Its stem is thin and long; it does not look able to carry a bowl of this width. The spiral inside it does not spill over, it stays within the edges.
The figure's mouth is open, its teeth showing, the corners raised. It seems to be laughing. But this laugh is not turned towards the goblet, it is turned towards us. One of its eyes is near closing, the lid grown heavy; the other eye has disappeared into the shadowed side of the face. A face that laughs with a half-closed eye invites a person while at the same time keeping them at a distance. The teeth are gapped, their rows irregular. You cannot tell where you stand before it. Around the head red leaves or flames are scattered, dispersing upward. This scattering takes up twice as much room as the head. What has grown is not so much the head itself as the thing spreading around it.
The body is seated and spread. Rounds of various colours are piled on top of one another, a chest can be made out, the hips widen below. The arms have melted into these rounds. There is no hand holding the goblet. The object stands there, the body here; no limb making the relation between them has been drawn. Like someone who wants something without extending their hand. Perhaps that goblet does not belong to it and had always been standing there anyway. The line of the shoulders is soft, the neck almost absent; the head sits directly on the body.
At the bottom of the goblet there is a small blue figure, its arms raised up. Its height is shorter than the body of the glass. The wanting party is small, the wanted thing large; this difference in proportion tells the logic of desire itself. For a child everything on the table stands at an unreachable height. This small figure's face cannot be made out, only the movement of reaching remains. Its arms are drawn longer than its body, its proportions broken down; in a reaching body the measures slip like this.
The lower edge is full of red rounds; they resemble fruit, a few as if crushed. They are made with the same brush movement as the flames around the head. The thing inside the head and the thing spilled at the feet share the same form. On the left green hatchings rise upward, wrapping around the place the body is seated. Among them there are a few more red traces; it is as if the fruit below had climbed all the way up there. The place the figure is seated and the surround of its head are encircled with the same marks, the only thing left in between being the body.
Society, Power and Technology
The difference in height between the little blue man who reaches the glass's stem and the crowned body that covers the paper is a description of a relationship; the one who serves and the one who is served share the same evening, one getting into his car, the other running for the bus. Because good service is counted as service in which the one who gives it is not noticed, invisibility becomes a part of the job description.
A little blue man has planted himself right beside the glass, his height only reaching the glass's stem, not reaching the bowl above. The glass is like a huge basin, its mouth wide, the liquid inside it darkened in a swirl. The body seated beside it, meanwhile, has covered the whole paper; on its head a dishevelled crown, on its mouth a smile that shows its teeth. Below, fruits are heaped, piled one on another. This is the classic set-up of the banquet table; the large one sits, the small one stands.
The difference in height is not a drawing choice here, it is a description of a relationship. To be at the same feast does not mean to be at the same table. The one who serves and the one who is served share the same room, smell the same food, are there at the same hour. Then one gets into his car, the other runs so as not to miss the last bus. The place where the class difference is seen most clearly is not the statistics, it is the same evening spent in the same place. Let us not skip this, the person at the table does not see himself as a bad one. He gives his tip, he says thank you, perhaps he asks your name. Good intention does not close the distance, it only makes it look softer. For it to close, the wage, the working hours, the insurance would have to change; and these are not talked about at that table.
The small figure's arms are spread to the sides, its palms open too. It carries nothing, nor does it want anything. It merely stands there. This stance reminds me of the workers waiting at the edge in restaurants; they watch the table, they wait to be called, until they are called they are asked to remain unseen. Invisibility has become a part of the job description. Good service is counted as service in which the one who gives it is not noticed. And the person who manages this grows used, after a while, to his own invisibility; he stops saying his name, he does not show that he is tired.
The seated figure's mouth is open and its teeth show, but there is nothing it is eating in its hand. It is not sated, nor is it in pursuit of being sated. Past a certain point consumption has no bearing on need in any case; the size of the table is now set not for eating but for show. How many people the meal was made for, how many bottles were opened, how many metres the table is, is recounted. No one asks where the leftover food goes. The amount of food that goes to waste is announced every year and forgotten every year. In the same city waste on one side, two neighbourhoods away a list of bread paid forward. That the two can exist at the same time is not a malfunction, it is how the order works.
The fruits below are spread as far as the lower edge of the paper, some of them look crushed. They are the only thing with a connection to the soil and in the picture they have been left at the very bottom. The stem of the glass steps right on top of them too, going into the heap as a thin rod.
Art History and Comparison
In Caravaggio's Bacchus the point is that invitation and rot stand in the same frame; the iconography here has been set up in full but no object is bound to an action, the crown put on, the goblet filled, everyone stopped. The tokens of the god of wine are ready, only the drinking mouth is missing; because its arms are cut off at the elbow, the organ that would hold the goblet has been left outside the painting.
Around the head there is a bushy crown of red leaves; below, on the right side, stands a wide footed goblet, filled inside. The lower edge is covered with round red berries, green leaves visible among them. The seated figure's body is built of lobes, its shoulders rounded, one eye open, its mouth parted just enough to show its teeth. In the lower left corner a small blue being stands at the foot of the goblet.
When the vine-leaf crown, the goblet and the grape come together, the iconography speaks itself. In Caravaggio's Bacchus the young god wears his crown of leaves, holds the goblet out towards the viewer with his fingertips, and in the fruit basket before him there are fruits that have begun to rot; the whole point is that invitation and rot stand in the same frame. On this paper there is no invitation. The goblet is in no one's hand, it has been set on the ground; the figure does not even look at it. Nor do the grapes rot, they are merely arranged as circles. The iconography of the god of wine has been set up in full, but no object in the scene is bound to an action; the crown has been put on, the goblet filled, and then everyone has stopped.
On ancient vases Dionysos was most often depicted frontally, as a mask; a face hung on a post, ivy around it, wine vessels beneath. The god there is no more than a face, his body is not needed. The strongest place of the figure here too is its face; the body is divided into patches of colour, and while it is unclear where the arms end, the face is kept as a single piece and covers the upper half of the paper. It has advanced towards becoming a mask, but has not reached a mask; there is still a shoulder, a chest, a hip. In ancient depiction ivy is the god's token and is always drawn so as to be recognised; the leaf crown here, however, is of an indefinite species, made of red strokes thrown down coil upon coil.
The numeral two in the title is thought-provoking too. Painters returning to the same subject a second time was an ordinary thing in the studio tradition; if a composition was liked it would be repeated, multiplied with small changes. For a hand that decides as it goes, without drawing beforehand, a second version means something different; not a copy, but a fresh attempt at the same subject. Across the series numbered titles are few; this too shows that returning to a subject is rare.
Among the paper works dated 2020 this is the only example that calls up a classical subject directly by its name. While in the canvases of the same year the titles mostly point to made-up scenes, here there is a mythological name and the painting supplies in full the objects that name requires. Only one thing is missing: a mouth drinking. The goblet is full, the fruit abundant, the crown in place; there is no one drinking. The figure's hands are not visible either, the arms cut off at the level of the elbow; the organ that would hold the goblet has been left outside the painting.
Material, Gesture and the Viewer's Experience
The red loops on top moved along fifteen or twenty windings without the brush ever lifting, and the black on the same brush goes as a separate strip at the edge without mixing. The pale coat below dried and the figure was built on top of it, but the yellow, pink and purple inside the body met while wet and left a thin band of mud.
The red loops on top are flung as an unbroken meander. The brush was placed on the paper once and moved along fifteen or twenty windings without ever lifting; the paint gathered at the turning points of the windings and thinned on the straights. There was black beside the red on the same brush, because one edge of the loops is dark along its whole length and that darkness continues without mixing, as a separate strip. The brush must be nearly three centimetres wide. Where the windings thin out the light ground of the paper passes through the gaps and those gaps are not filled.
The pale blue green coat on the paper is at the very bottom and very thin. It is laid with horizontal passes, cut off in places, and breathes from between the white of the paper. This coat was built on after it had dried; nowhere is there a blurring where the two paints seeped into each other. The yellow, pink, purple and blue fillings inside the body, on the other hand, met among themselves while wet. Over the shoulder yellow and pink ran into each other, their borders melted. At the place where the yellow and purple beneath the belly cross, meanwhile, a thin band of mud was left and left so.
The black contours are the last and the most fluid moves. A single pull drawing the outer line of the arm covers nearly forty centimetres, thickening in the middle and thinning at the tip, and nowhere stopping and starting again. The line around the face, on the other hand, is more hesitant; it was returned to in two places and there the line thickened twofold. The teeth inside the mouth, meanwhile, are left side by side with short and hard touches.
The green fans are at an altogether different speed. The brush entered the surface at a slant and was drawn fast, its bristles spread and each move split into five or six thin lines. On the left edge and to the right of the figure the same movement repeats. The red flicks below are of the same kind too; all one by one and the paper open between them. The inside of the bowl on the right, on the other hand, is filled by turning; the brush made several turns, darkened at the centre and, opening outward, left the paint by thinning it. The blue rounds beside it are placed with single pressings too, they carry the thickest paint.
An A2 paper is a size that can be turned with one hand and none of the moves here seeped downward; the paper was lying flat while it was being worked, I think. Across the middle of the paper runs a horizontal pale line, it looks like a fold mark and the paint passing over it could not cover it. Looked at from a metre a seated body and the ring around it are set up. Come down to thirty centimetres and the paper's own roughness shows itself everywhere the paint stayed light, and that fold mark comes back from beneath everything.
Back to bacchus 2
