The Unworthy Artist: Cy Twombly

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Three blank white canvases are put on display as a triptych in a prestigious French art gallery. Paintings that look more like hastily scribbled pencil marks, or seem to resemble a child’s graffiti on a blackboard, are sold for over four million dollars. Some viewers and critics would venture to ask, “What’s the big deal?” or comment, “My six year-old could do that.” Although normally I enjoy abstract, experimental art – being such a painter myself – I do not believe Cy Twombly to be a “worthy” artist.

Make no mistake: what Twombly creates is, without a doubt, legitimate art. In fact, I do like and appreciate some of it. However, I don’t believe Twombly deserves to be the multi-millionaire and household name that he has become…regardless of the challenging circumstances he faced throughout his early career.

Twombly’s work is to many, very cryptic and mysterious. Some have called it an acquired taste. Anyone who has seen an original piece in person will agree that it is nearly impossible to duplicate. Unfortunately, forty years ago, this placed Twombly at a disadvantage. The virtual antithesis of over-reproduced Pop Art and the minimalist styles that were so hugely popular in the 1960’s, Twombly’s art was harshly criticized and widely counted against in America. In making his career in Rome, Italy, he had sided against history. 1964 was the year his reputation plummeted. A gallery show in New York of nine paintings entitled “Discourse on Commodus” was trashed by journalists and viewers. Most regarded the series of paintings as a joke. Twombly relocated to Europe. It wasn’t until twenty years later that he would return to America, backed by enthusiastic young European artists and collectors.

Cy Twombly was born in Lexington,...

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.... In 1995, The Cy Twombly Gallery of the Menil Collection in Houston, designed by Renzo Piano, provides space for over thirty sculptures, paintings, and works on paper. The entire collection spans over forty years.

Intrigued by mythology and classic literary works from Italy, Twombly often quoted authors and poets in his paintings, scrawling fragmented lines of prose in a loose cursive script that was barely legible. He would drop names and well-known phrases from antiquity, hoping to communicate his belief that the classical past was not dead. However, in speaking for many critics, Richard Hughes commented, “a toenail paring isn’t a body,” and so many agree Twombly’s efforts were insufficient.

WORKS CITED

The American Art Book

http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_156.html

http://www.home.spyrnet.com/~mindweb/twombly2.htm

Wikipedia.org

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