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Lot Essay
“Twombly’s art consists in making us see things: not those which he represents (this is another problem), but those which he manipulates: a few pencil strokes, this squared paper, this touch of pink, this brown smudge. This is an art with a secret, which is in general not that of spreading the substance (charcoal, ink, oils) but of letting it trail behind,” (R. Barthes, The Wisdom of Art, 1976.)
A visual glossolalia, Cy Twomby’s Untitled masterfully captures the artist’s signature iconographies in a meticulously curated, concise composition, marking a notable shift in the artist’s practice from full-fledged frenzy to highly referential, enigmatic imagery. Though dramatic for its inclusion of the artist’s renowned scrawls, Untitled is captivating for its atmospheric quality. While earlier stages of the artist’s career are noteworthy for Twombly’s use of overwhelming, frenetic drawing, Untitled introduces the illusion of a composed landscape, a sky decorated with a constellation of motifs. In this regard, each scribble becomes a cloud, or a puff of smoke, delicately floating within the cream sky of the sheet. Amidst this sky, Twombly grounds the composition with structural elements reminiscent of our built environment, from imageries of domesticity - walls, roofs and, of course, his known window motif – to those of mechanical innovation – several airplanes spotting the sky. Also notable is Twombly’s keen use of numerology, which is widely regarded as an iconic element of the artist’s visual lexicon. Flying adjacent to an airplane, for example, is the number ‘4’. Equations are scattered along the lower register. Perhaps this is Twombly nodding to the innovations in science and technology emerging around him, with several countries sending vessels into space and the built environment advancing at unprecedented rates. In other passages of the composition, untethered numbers float in the picture plane, indicative of the artist’s play with symbols that are at some times referential and other times completely meaningless. This visual language, deeply rooted in Twombly’s fascination with the intersections between the natural and the mechanical world, is compellingly legible in Untitled.
Executed during a pivotal moment in the artist’s career, Untitled is one of nineteen drawings completed during the artist’s stay in Castel Gardenia, a Renaissance castle located in the Italian Alps where the artist would frequently summer. Referred to as Notes from a Tower, comparable examples from this series reside in esteemed institutional collections, such as the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, The Morgan Library & Museum in New York and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. During this time, one may imagine the various visual and cultural resources at the artist’s disposal: the fantastical dramas of the Renaissance, architecture both historic and new, the calm warmth of nature, the mythic allure of Classical high-brow culture and the visceral, modern experiences of the city’s street life. Pulling from these varying, at times contrasting, realms, Twombly resolves the world around him into a radical new language of revolutionary mark-making.
With his distinct visual language now emboldening the artist to integrate references and symbols from his surrounding culture into his work, Twombly’s works on paper from this period present the artist’s voice and mind with profound clarity. Both delicate and dynamic, balancing blank space with frenetic bursts of energy, Twombly’s Untitled may perhaps be considered a topology of the artist’s sensations and memories. Executing these works with an immediacy, furiously employing fragments of the world around him in his compositions, Twombly offers the viewer a glimpse into his mind and the histories, the images and the colors that captivated it. At times historical, mythological, calculated, frenetic and composed, Untitled conveys the icons, the symbols and colors that substantiated the artist’s experience. Twombly’s richly enigmatic motifs, his deeply personal vernacular, equips Untitled with an undeniable prominence.
A visual glossolalia, Cy Twomby’s Untitled masterfully captures the artist’s signature iconographies in a meticulously curated, concise composition, marking a notable shift in the artist’s practice from full-fledged frenzy to highly referential, enigmatic imagery. Though dramatic for its inclusion of the artist’s renowned scrawls, Untitled is captivating for its atmospheric quality. While earlier stages of the artist’s career are noteworthy for Twombly’s use of overwhelming, frenetic drawing, Untitled introduces the illusion of a composed landscape, a sky decorated with a constellation of motifs. In this regard, each scribble becomes a cloud, or a puff of smoke, delicately floating within the cream sky of the sheet. Amidst this sky, Twombly grounds the composition with structural elements reminiscent of our built environment, from imageries of domesticity - walls, roofs and, of course, his known window motif – to those of mechanical innovation – several airplanes spotting the sky. Also notable is Twombly’s keen use of numerology, which is widely regarded as an iconic element of the artist’s visual lexicon. Flying adjacent to an airplane, for example, is the number ‘4’. Equations are scattered along the lower register. Perhaps this is Twombly nodding to the innovations in science and technology emerging around him, with several countries sending vessels into space and the built environment advancing at unprecedented rates. In other passages of the composition, untethered numbers float in the picture plane, indicative of the artist’s play with symbols that are at some times referential and other times completely meaningless. This visual language, deeply rooted in Twombly’s fascination with the intersections between the natural and the mechanical world, is compellingly legible in Untitled.
Executed during a pivotal moment in the artist’s career, Untitled is one of nineteen drawings completed during the artist’s stay in Castel Gardenia, a Renaissance castle located in the Italian Alps where the artist would frequently summer. Referred to as Notes from a Tower, comparable examples from this series reside in esteemed institutional collections, such as the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, The Morgan Library & Museum in New York and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. During this time, one may imagine the various visual and cultural resources at the artist’s disposal: the fantastical dramas of the Renaissance, architecture both historic and new, the calm warmth of nature, the mythic allure of Classical high-brow culture and the visceral, modern experiences of the city’s street life. Pulling from these varying, at times contrasting, realms, Twombly resolves the world around him into a radical new language of revolutionary mark-making.
With his distinct visual language now emboldening the artist to integrate references and symbols from his surrounding culture into his work, Twombly’s works on paper from this period present the artist’s voice and mind with profound clarity. Both delicate and dynamic, balancing blank space with frenetic bursts of energy, Twombly’s Untitled may perhaps be considered a topology of the artist’s sensations and memories. Executing these works with an immediacy, furiously employing fragments of the world around him in his compositions, Twombly offers the viewer a glimpse into his mind and the histories, the images and the colors that captivated it. At times historical, mythological, calculated, frenetic and composed, Untitled conveys the icons, the symbols and colors that substantiated the artist’s experience. Twombly’s richly enigmatic motifs, his deeply personal vernacular, equips Untitled with an undeniable prominence.