Large dish with Dionysos Eydendros

Joe Tilson
refractory majolica
1983

During ancient rituals masks hung in trees were used as an apotropaic presence, averting evil. These masks are associated with Dionysius, not only due to their uses in Dionysian rites relating to the origins of theatre (where the mask becomes a symbol) but also deriving from their original meaning wherein vegetation represents the power attributed to nature, only later becoming personified as the god of vines and wine.

This mask nestled in green foliage bears the Greek inscription Dionysos Eydendros referring to The Lord of the Trees, mentioned by Plutarch. The considerable size and intense colours of the dish materialise the bursting vitality of the sap of life.

Joe Tilson is a leading English painter, sculptor and pop artist as well as being a ceramicist of the informal school and lives and works between London, Italy and the Aegean islands: clear allusions to the classical world are apparent in much the work by this “strange Mediterranean dada” who uses “emblemi di vita” (emblems of life/the vine) embracing the whole world.