1 rC( (1 7(-11

CYTWOMBLY SCULPTURES 1992-2005

Essays by Giorgio Agamben Edward Albee

Reinhold Baumstark and Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Photographs by Jochen Littkemann

La urenz Ben~es-aJL-oLshy

f1rf11tIDfIl~lg

~~~

ALTE PINAKOTHEK NIUNCHEN

in cooperation with

SCHIRNIERINIOSEL

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

17231359

Pub lished on the occasio n or lhe exhibirion

e y Twombly in del Alren Pinakorhek - Sklil pruren

5 April 2006 - 30 Jul y 2006

Alre Pinako rh ek Munich

EX HIBITI ON

co CE PT ~ l) REALI ZATION

Reinhold Baumstark Carla Schulz-HoffmlI1n Paul Winkler

SUPE RVISION OF CO ltS FRVAT ION

Erich GamzCfI- JSLr illo

CATALOG

P UBLIS H ED BY

Baye rische Sraarsgemaldesam mlungen

1 110 rOGRAPHS

Jochen Lirckemann Berlin pp 17-19 2 1 23 25 2729- 3 1 33 Yi middot37

39414345 47 49 ~ 1 53 55 ~7-~9 6 1 63 65- 67 69 7 1 73 75

77798 1- 87 899 19395 cover illustratio n (Un titled 200 1 detail)

Laurenz Berges O(isseldort pp 70111-129 140-141

Udo Brandhorsr pp1 30 132 135- 138

Cagosian Callery cw Yo rk p 97

TRA middotSIATIO 5

Jeremy (aincs (Schulz-HoFFmann Baulllsruk)

Sarah Moore (Agamben)

copy 2006 Pinakolhck Munich and SchirmerMosel Mun ich

For th e sculptures copy 2006 by Cy TVomb ly

This work is prorected by copyrighr in who le and in parr Th e reproduction

or communi utio l1 of this wo rk in any Form or by any me[) wirhour prior

permission from th e pub lisher is ilegal and punishabl e This l l llilt to all ac rs

of ut in particu lar such as rhe reproducrion of ICXl and pi crures rhcir

performance and demonstrarion rran slation filming microfilming broadcasting

storage and procCs in g in electronic media InFringemen ts will be prosecuted

DE SIGN Sch irmerMose l Atelier

LITH OGRAP HY lovaConcepr Berlin

TYP ES IN G Fotosarz Huber Munchen

PRI N T G IIlt D BINDING Passavia PaSSJlI

ISBN 10 J -R29G-0245-6

ISUN 13 978-3-82-02 ) -7

A Schirmer 1osel Produ rion

wwwschirmfr-moselcom

Pub lished on the occasio n or lhe exhibirion

e y Twombly in del Alren Pinakorhek - Sklil pruren

5 April 2006 - 30 Jul y 2006

Alre Pinako rh ek Munich

EX HIBITI ON

co CE PT ~ l) REALI ZATION

Reinhold Baumstark Carla Schulz-HoffmlI1n Paul Winkler

SUPE RVISION OF CO ltS FRVAT ION

Erich GamzCfI- JSLr illo

CATALOG

P UBLIS H ED BY

Baye rische Sraarsgemaldesam mlungen

1 110 rOGRAPHS

Jochen Lirckemann Berlin pp 17-19 2 1 23 25 2729- 3 1 33 Yi middot37

39414345 47 49 ~ 1 53 55 ~7-~9 6 1 63 65- 67 69 7 1 73 75

77798 1- 87 899 19395 cover illustratio n (Un titled 200 1 detail)

Laurenz Berges O(isseldort pp 70111-129 140-141

Udo Brandhorsr pp1 30 132 135- 138

Cagosian Callery cw Yo rk p 97

TRA middotSIATIO 5

Jeremy (aincs (Schulz-HoFFmann Baulllsruk)

Sarah Moore (Agamben)

copy 2006 Pinakolhck Munich and SchirmerMosel Mun ich

For th e sculptures copy 2006 by Cy TVomb ly

This work is prorected by copyrighr in who le and in parr Th e reproduction

or communi utio l1 of this wo rk in any Form or by any me[) wirhour prior

permission from th e pub lisher is ilegal and punishabl e This l l llilt to all ac rs

of ut in particu lar such as rhe reproducrion of ICXl and pi crures rhcir

performance and demonstrarion rran slation filming microfilming broadcasting

storage and procCs in g in electronic media InFringemen ts will be prosecuted

DE SIGN Sch irmerMose l Atelier

LITH OGRAP HY lovaConcepr Berlin

TYP ES IN G Fotosarz Huber Munchen

PRI N T G IIlt D BINDING Passavia PaSSJlI

ISBN 10 J -R29G-0245-6

ISUN 13 978-3-82-02 ) -7

A Schirmer 1osel Produ rion

wwwschirmfr-moselcom

CONTENTS

PREFA C

Reinhold Baumstark

7

CYTWO MBLY

Edward Albee

9

FALLIN G BEAUTY

Giorgio Agamben

13

SCULPTURES

17

T O FEEL ALL THIN GS IN ALL WAYS

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

99

PICT URES AT AN EXHIBITION

II I

JOURNEY T O LEXINGTON

Reinhold Baumstark

13 1

LIST OF OBJECTS

142

BIBLIOGRAPHY

144

PREFACE Reinhold Baumstar~

The fac t that the works of contemporary sculptor Cy Twombly are on show in the Alte

Pinalltothek and that the public can now view sculptures never before shown in our Old

Masters treasury is an appropriate way to honor and recognize this great American artist

who has long since found his way to Europe in his life and work Although they were

created on ly recen tly his sculptures partake of that age-old quest to express absolute

beau ty The force of his sym bols the sensuousness brought to life by h is shaping hand

and the weigh tlessness of the color white shel teri ng the banal objets trouves and

ennObling them with an aura of timelessness All th is serves to place his scul ptures on an

qual plane with the ach ievements of the O ld M asters Thei r vicinity was sought by Cy

Twombly throughout his career H e is familiar with Raphael and Poussin (who both

like him chose to live in Rome) has fo und inspiration in Hieronymus Bosch and has

closely studied the colors of the Flem ish pain ters Therefore in the Alte Pinakothek his

sculptures encounter companio ns and enter into a d ialog with them as equals Sincere

thanks are due [Q th e artist for allowing th is important part of his recent work [Q debut

not in cen ters of contemporary art but at M unichs Al te Pi nakothek and for having the

sculptures come here as personal loans from his private collection From the outset Cy

Twombly has warmly supported the p roj ect His encouragemen t and trust and our

meetings with him were and remain experiences that have come to be- like the objets

trouves in his sculptures-las ting treasures

We have two individuals to thank for bringing Cy Twombly to Munich Very early on

they understood the importance of his art One of them is Heiner Friedrich who comshy

missioned works in 1964 and showed them in his Munich gallery at Maximilianstrasse

under the tide The artist in the northern climate Later Udo Brandhorst by deciding

to bring his highly distinguished collection of contemporary art to Munich initiated a

project of great consequence to the long-term reception of Cy Twomblys art As early as

1966 co llectors Anette and U do Bran d horst had brought together with farsighted

knowledge and passion a great num ber of Cy Twomblys works In recent years the colshy

lection was thoughtfully en larged with an eye to the present cons truction of the

Museum Brand hors t next to the Pinako thek der Moderne culminating in the acquisishy

7

tio n of a late masterwork of this artist the 12-part Lepanto series which had already

been exhibited in the Alte Pinakothek in 2002 In the future the Brandhorst Museum

in Munich will be the most important place-after the Menil Collection in Houstonshy

for studying Cy Twomblys art Udo Brandhorst was moreover the initiator for the proshy

ject of presenting the sculptures at the Alte Pinakothek and he has actively supported

this undertaking I warmly thank him for showing us into the artists studio for includshy

ing us in his friendship with the artist and for bringing his enthusiasm for Cy

Twomblys work to the Alte Pinakothek

Thanks are due to all who worked on the first presentation and publication of Cy

Twomblys new sculptures To Paul Winkler the most intimate connoisseur of the work

for directing the installation of the sculptures in Munich and thus triggering monologs

dialogs and choirs on the experience of sculptures aesthetic in space light and time To

Nicola Del Roscio for giving his friendly advice based on years of intimate knowledge of

the artist s work To Erich Gantzert-Castrillo for supervising and positioning the fragile

sculptures with the care of a conservator specializing in handling 20 th-century art It is

my pleasure also to thank the two famous authors of this volume who coming from the

two hemispheres of Cy Twomblys life discuss his sculptures The greatest living

American playwright Edward Albee and one of the most influential contemporary

philosophers Giorgio Agamben Their lucid essays are followed by the sensitive intershy

pretation of my colleague Carla Schulz-Hoffmann who probes into the deeper strata of

Cy Twomblys sculptures These writings are ingeniously complemented by photographs

that were especially taken for this volume Jochen Littkemann has created wonderfully

lucid portraits of the sculptures while Laurenz Berges proves his mastery in capturing the

atmosphere of the Alte Pinakotheks rooms I also wish to thank Cy Twombly collector

and publisher Lothar Schirmer (and his publishing house SchirmerMosel) for facilitatshy

ing the dialog between essays and photographs and thereby creating such a beautiful

book

Friends of Cy Twombly have contributed to this book-it is therefore a gift to the artist

from his friends

8

CYTWOMBLY Edward Albee

Most painters are painters and most sculptors are sculptors Oh really Well yes-genshy

erally speaking this is so at least as public perception And as we shall see public pershy

ception determines accepted view

Let us limit ourselves to 20 th-century Western art That way we can sidestep considerashy

tion of Michelangelo a clear disprover of the maxim (I prefer his sculpture but that is

neither here nor there)

And let us limit ourselves to prime examples of important painters universally known for

their flat wall work but who have made three-dimensional objects as well and see what

happens Degas (surely he is a 20 th-century painter) made lovely sculpture-glorious

dancers and horses (around the time he was painting horses-Iate-ish) These are splenshy

did works and could have been made only by Degas but excluding these from ones

knowledge of Degas does not diminish Degas one bit

The same could be said of Matisse-a painter (and what a painter) who also made fine

sculpture

And look for a moment at a few sculptors who did not always stick to their last shy

Giacometti for example an important sculptor (though his signature elongated figures

do not hold my interest-perhaps there are just too many of them-as much as his earshy

lier less familiar work) and whose paintings and drawings strike me as basically studies

for sculpture-whether they were made as such or not Giacometti is thought of prishy

marily as a sculptor-and so he is

Marcel Duchamp is a very important sculptor whose three-dimensional work transcends

the accepted definition and whose importance lies primarily in his relocating the boundshy

aries of art and whose art about art work is one of the major turning points in the

20 th-century visual experience He painted-mostly early on-but it is his three-dimenshy

sional objects which define his greatness The important Franco-American sculptor

9

Louise Bourg ois has made probably hundreds of works on pap r which are a fascinatshy

ing guide to her unconscio us bu t it is her wooden totems of the early 50s as well as her

later Rooms which will one day penetrate the public consciousn ss sufficiently to place

her properly in d ue hierarchy

Now let us look at three painters whose rhr e-dimensional objects are- to my mind-as

important as their flat works Picasso Rauschenb rg and Cy Twombly

No one doubts Picass s greatness as a painter or h is importance t the history of 20 rh_

century art (though what the p ublic likes is rarely work from h is m ost importan t peri shy

ods) His sculpture-from th cubist work right on th rough except perhaps-again to

my mind-the tedious ceramics is as fi ne as the paintings (drawings graphic work) and

is instructive to any s ulptor or-for that matter-anyone interes ted in the proc sses of

the creative mi nd specifically in the ways that the sculptures echo the three-dimension shy

ality of the paintings (has any 20 rh-century painter been more three-dilnensional than

Picasso) and exist on such a high creative level themselves Whenever I see a Picasso

piece of sculpture (especially the cubist ones of course) I fin d my brea th is taken once

agam

While Degas would not be diminished as an artist were his sculptures not to exist I b 1

that Picasso would be

Among the US painters of the second half of the 20 rh-century (and thro ugh to now) one

stands out to me as a painter who redefIned sculpture (Robert Rausch nb rg) and one

emerges that rare artist equally important in both fi elds equally exciting as painter and

sculptor-Cy Twombly

Rauschenbergs flat work is frequently not flat of course and the Combines an d th e

fully free-standing pieces from the early 90s are important works that make dearer the

preconceptions of his totally flat pieces Would Rauschenberg be less without h is threeshy

dimensional work I think so

Cy Twombly is an artist who has made scul pture almost as long as he has made paint shy

ings but public awareness of it has been sJow in arriving (But again it was not un til

well into his career that people began to sense the worth of his paintings-no t that he

was slow in blooming but the specialness of the work the uniqueness of the vision put

10

- - - - -- -~

off those who have to relate something to some specific other in order to know how

their response should be formulated)

Does Twomblys sculpture look like the kind of work a painter would make No cershy

tainly not Does his painting look like the sort of work a sculptor would make Equally

no Both his paintings and his sculpture look like the extraordinarily individual mysterishy

ous and inevitable art works that an artist of his calibre and thrilling non-referentiality

would make

We can say of Twomblys work-as praise-that we dont know where it comes from

that its sources exist solely in the mind of the artist and that comparisons tell us nothing

Twomblys sculpture looks as though it has always existed and is at the same time totalshy

ly new It refers only to itself (however much we attempt to demystify it) The pieces are

solid airy serious (but never humorless) and say to us Look at me as I am I am simply

this

What a wonder for us that simply this is so thrilling so individual I wouldnt be surshy

prised if one day-way down the line-Cy Twombly will be known as the great sculptor

who also did some amazing paintings

NYC 2006

II

FALLING BEAUTY Giorgio Agamben

T he sculpture Untitled dated Gaeta 1984 bears the English translation of some lines

from Rilke inscribed on a scroll on the base T hese are not just any old verses but the

four verses concluding the Tenth Elegy and thus the entire cycle of the Duino Elegies

And it is precisely in the Tenth Elegy that Ri lke speaks as if he were describing an

unheard offering-but also a tempest without a name a spiritual hurricane during

which everything in me that was fiber and tissue cracked

The original four lines Twombly transcribes onto his sculpture are as follows

Und wir die an steigendes Gluck

den ken empfonden die Ruhrung

die uns beinah besturzt

wenn ein Gluckliches falIt

And we who think of happiness

ascending would feel the emotion

that almost overwhelms us

when a happy thing foIls

I would like to linger a while on the proximity between the movement in this verse and

that in Twomblys sculpture which bears witness to their connection to Untitled and

which is surely no coincidence

We all know that the Tenth Elegy is a sort of death ceremony certainly not a Christian

one but rather an Egyptian one Right at the end the dead youth who has traversed the

land of Lamentation silently climbs (steigt) the mountain of Ur-Ieid of primordial Pain

And here after this silent ascent the poet introduces the vertical image of the fall

Aber erweckten sie uns die unendlich To ten ein Gleichnis

siehe sie zeigten vielleicht aufdie Katzchen der leeren

Hasel die hangenden oder

meinten den Regen der flllt aufdunkles Erdreich im Fruhjahr

13

But if they were to awaken a symbol for us the endlessly dead

see perhaps they would point to the catkins of the empty

hazels the ones just hanging there or

the rain that falls upon the dark earth in Spring

So as in Twomblys sculpture the idea here is one of a flower a falling plant Rilke had

originally written the catkins of the willow tree but then his friend Elisabeth Aman

Volkart sent him a book on botany and he was able to note that it was not willow but

hazel (Ha5e~ that has hanging flowers In his reply Rilke writes that when he first hears

it it is precisely this fall that the reader must gather and comprehend in the catkins

The idea of the fall in the poem is rendered in metric terms by a true split in the second

and particularly in the third line signaled by a enjambement that interrupts the sense in

a particularly sharp way with a disjointed or (The fracture of the stem or the trunk in

Twomblys sculpture seems to repeat this sharpness)

In the four lines that follow which are the ones Twombly has transcribed onto the

scroll the fracture is further underlined by the fact that in metric terms this verse repshy

resents the breaking of two elegy-type lines into four hemistichs almost as though the

internal caesura in each line had expanded to the point of destroying its unity to the

point of blasting it into two halves

I believe that these considerations can form a useful viaticum for understanding the

formal problem that Twombly who demonstrates that he has intently contemplated the

lesson of the Tenth Elegy proposes in his untitled sculpture In more concise words the

problem is this What is falling beauty Or put yet another way How can we give

form to broken and falling beauty

There comes a point on the creative journey of every great artist every poet when the

image of beauty that he appeared to pursue until then as a continual ascent suddenly

inverts and starts falling directly downwards so to speak It is this topical moment that

finds expression in Twomblys untitled piece in the cracking of the wood that reversing

its upward movement falls back to earth right at the point where the scroll inscribes its

Rilkean motto

In the obscure almost feverish annotations on his translation of Sophocles Holderlin

developed a theory of the caesura that I do not think would be impertinent to recall

here In the textured cut in the line made by the caesura that for this reason he calls

anti-rhythmic suspension what appears writes Holderlin is no longer the alternating

of representations the successive movement of the subject and the sense but the represhy

sen tation itself the p ure word It seems to me that in this vis ionary sculpture it is as

though Twombly has succeeded in giving form to a caesura in d isplaying its sculptural

equivalent In drastically eliminating the floral paraphernalia of Rilkean Jugendstil he

red uces the problem down to its basic form al core And as according to Holderlin the

caesura displays the word itself here it is both the work and the art itself that appears in

the shattering and breaking of the upward movement What I am trying to say is that

the work is not simply a representat ion o f the caesura but is the caesura itself in its

movemen t th e caesura-the caesura that exposes the inactive core of every work the

poin t at which the will of art supporting i t seems almost blinded and suspended For

this reason it is as though the movement of falling beauty has no weight it is not the

work of gravity but a sort of inverse flight like the one Simone Weil had to think of

when she asked Gravity makes things come down wings make them rise What wings

raised to the second power can make things come down without weight

Such is Twom blys gesture in these ex treme sculptures in which every ascent is

reversed and suspended almost a threshold or caesura between an action and a nonshy

action Fall ing beauty It is the point of de-creation when the artist in his supreme way

no longer creates but de-creates the messianic moment which has no possible tide and

in which art mi raculously stands still almost thunderstruck fallen and risen at every

moment

In his essay G iorgio Agamben refers to the Untitled sculpture Gae ta 1984

which is still in the possession of the artist Ill in N icola D el Roscio (ed)

Catalogue Raisonne ofSculpture vol 1 (1946-1997) (Munich 1997) no 7 l

15

Untitled (Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum) 2000 230 x 655 x 45 5 em ca e 8

r6

I

J

-

bull ~

~

bull ~ --

-~ t

Unrid d 2004 125 x 33 x 278 em

ca L 30 (above dCla il)

18

( I

I ( J

--

ntided 2003 40 x 53 x 53 em

Gu22

22

---- -----~

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

PREFACE Reinhold Baumstar~

The fac t that the works of contemporary sculptor Cy Twombly are on show in the Alte

Pinalltothek and that the public can now view sculptures never before shown in our Old

Masters treasury is an appropriate way to honor and recognize this great American artist

who has long since found his way to Europe in his life and work Although they were

created on ly recen tly his sculptures partake of that age-old quest to express absolute

beau ty The force of his sym bols the sensuousness brought to life by h is shaping hand

and the weigh tlessness of the color white shel teri ng the banal objets trouves and

ennObling them with an aura of timelessness All th is serves to place his scul ptures on an

qual plane with the ach ievements of the O ld M asters Thei r vicinity was sought by Cy

Twombly throughout his career H e is familiar with Raphael and Poussin (who both

like him chose to live in Rome) has fo und inspiration in Hieronymus Bosch and has

closely studied the colors of the Flem ish pain ters Therefore in the Alte Pinakothek his

sculptures encounter companio ns and enter into a d ialog with them as equals Sincere

thanks are due [Q th e artist for allowing th is important part of his recent work [Q debut

not in cen ters of contemporary art but at M unichs Al te Pi nakothek and for having the

sculptures come here as personal loans from his private collection From the outset Cy

Twombly has warmly supported the p roj ect His encouragemen t and trust and our

meetings with him were and remain experiences that have come to be- like the objets

trouves in his sculptures-las ting treasures

We have two individuals to thank for bringing Cy Twombly to Munich Very early on

they understood the importance of his art One of them is Heiner Friedrich who comshy

missioned works in 1964 and showed them in his Munich gallery at Maximilianstrasse

under the tide The artist in the northern climate Later Udo Brandhorst by deciding

to bring his highly distinguished collection of contemporary art to Munich initiated a

project of great consequence to the long-term reception of Cy Twomblys art As early as

1966 co llectors Anette and U do Bran d horst had brought together with farsighted

knowledge and passion a great num ber of Cy Twomblys works In recent years the colshy

lection was thoughtfully en larged with an eye to the present cons truction of the

Museum Brand hors t next to the Pinako thek der Moderne culminating in the acquisishy

7

tio n of a late masterwork of this artist the 12-part Lepanto series which had already

been exhibited in the Alte Pinakothek in 2002 In the future the Brandhorst Museum

in Munich will be the most important place-after the Menil Collection in Houstonshy

for studying Cy Twomblys art Udo Brandhorst was moreover the initiator for the proshy

ject of presenting the sculptures at the Alte Pinakothek and he has actively supported

this undertaking I warmly thank him for showing us into the artists studio for includshy

ing us in his friendship with the artist and for bringing his enthusiasm for Cy

Twomblys work to the Alte Pinakothek

Thanks are due to all who worked on the first presentation and publication of Cy

Twomblys new sculptures To Paul Winkler the most intimate connoisseur of the work

for directing the installation of the sculptures in Munich and thus triggering monologs

dialogs and choirs on the experience of sculptures aesthetic in space light and time To

Nicola Del Roscio for giving his friendly advice based on years of intimate knowledge of

the artist s work To Erich Gantzert-Castrillo for supervising and positioning the fragile

sculptures with the care of a conservator specializing in handling 20 th-century art It is

my pleasure also to thank the two famous authors of this volume who coming from the

two hemispheres of Cy Twomblys life discuss his sculptures The greatest living

American playwright Edward Albee and one of the most influential contemporary

philosophers Giorgio Agamben Their lucid essays are followed by the sensitive intershy

pretation of my colleague Carla Schulz-Hoffmann who probes into the deeper strata of

Cy Twomblys sculptures These writings are ingeniously complemented by photographs

that were especially taken for this volume Jochen Littkemann has created wonderfully

lucid portraits of the sculptures while Laurenz Berges proves his mastery in capturing the

atmosphere of the Alte Pinakotheks rooms I also wish to thank Cy Twombly collector

and publisher Lothar Schirmer (and his publishing house SchirmerMosel) for facilitatshy

ing the dialog between essays and photographs and thereby creating such a beautiful

book

Friends of Cy Twombly have contributed to this book-it is therefore a gift to the artist

from his friends

8

CYTWOMBLY Edward Albee

Most painters are painters and most sculptors are sculptors Oh really Well yes-genshy

erally speaking this is so at least as public perception And as we shall see public pershy

ception determines accepted view

Let us limit ourselves to 20 th-century Western art That way we can sidestep considerashy

tion of Michelangelo a clear disprover of the maxim (I prefer his sculpture but that is

neither here nor there)

And let us limit ourselves to prime examples of important painters universally known for

their flat wall work but who have made three-dimensional objects as well and see what

happens Degas (surely he is a 20 th-century painter) made lovely sculpture-glorious

dancers and horses (around the time he was painting horses-Iate-ish) These are splenshy

did works and could have been made only by Degas but excluding these from ones

knowledge of Degas does not diminish Degas one bit

The same could be said of Matisse-a painter (and what a painter) who also made fine

sculpture

And look for a moment at a few sculptors who did not always stick to their last shy

Giacometti for example an important sculptor (though his signature elongated figures

do not hold my interest-perhaps there are just too many of them-as much as his earshy

lier less familiar work) and whose paintings and drawings strike me as basically studies

for sculpture-whether they were made as such or not Giacometti is thought of prishy

marily as a sculptor-and so he is

Marcel Duchamp is a very important sculptor whose three-dimensional work transcends

the accepted definition and whose importance lies primarily in his relocating the boundshy

aries of art and whose art about art work is one of the major turning points in the

20 th-century visual experience He painted-mostly early on-but it is his three-dimenshy

sional objects which define his greatness The important Franco-American sculptor

9

Louise Bourg ois has made probably hundreds of works on pap r which are a fascinatshy

ing guide to her unconscio us bu t it is her wooden totems of the early 50s as well as her

later Rooms which will one day penetrate the public consciousn ss sufficiently to place

her properly in d ue hierarchy

Now let us look at three painters whose rhr e-dimensional objects are- to my mind-as

important as their flat works Picasso Rauschenb rg and Cy Twombly

No one doubts Picass s greatness as a painter or h is importance t the history of 20 rh_

century art (though what the p ublic likes is rarely work from h is m ost importan t peri shy

ods) His sculpture-from th cubist work right on th rough except perhaps-again to

my mind-the tedious ceramics is as fi ne as the paintings (drawings graphic work) and

is instructive to any s ulptor or-for that matter-anyone interes ted in the proc sses of

the creative mi nd specifically in the ways that the sculptures echo the three-dimension shy

ality of the paintings (has any 20 rh-century painter been more three-dilnensional than

Picasso) and exist on such a high creative level themselves Whenever I see a Picasso

piece of sculpture (especially the cubist ones of course) I fin d my brea th is taken once

agam

While Degas would not be diminished as an artist were his sculptures not to exist I b 1

that Picasso would be

Among the US painters of the second half of the 20 rh-century (and thro ugh to now) one

stands out to me as a painter who redefIned sculpture (Robert Rausch nb rg) and one

emerges that rare artist equally important in both fi elds equally exciting as painter and

sculptor-Cy Twombly

Rauschenbergs flat work is frequently not flat of course and the Combines an d th e

fully free-standing pieces from the early 90s are important works that make dearer the

preconceptions of his totally flat pieces Would Rauschenberg be less without h is threeshy

dimensional work I think so

Cy Twombly is an artist who has made scul pture almost as long as he has made paint shy

ings but public awareness of it has been sJow in arriving (But again it was not un til

well into his career that people began to sense the worth of his paintings-no t that he

was slow in blooming but the specialness of the work the uniqueness of the vision put

10

- - - - -- -~

off those who have to relate something to some specific other in order to know how

their response should be formulated)

Does Twomblys sculpture look like the kind of work a painter would make No cershy

tainly not Does his painting look like the sort of work a sculptor would make Equally

no Both his paintings and his sculpture look like the extraordinarily individual mysterishy

ous and inevitable art works that an artist of his calibre and thrilling non-referentiality

would make

We can say of Twomblys work-as praise-that we dont know where it comes from

that its sources exist solely in the mind of the artist and that comparisons tell us nothing

Twomblys sculpture looks as though it has always existed and is at the same time totalshy

ly new It refers only to itself (however much we attempt to demystify it) The pieces are

solid airy serious (but never humorless) and say to us Look at me as I am I am simply

this

What a wonder for us that simply this is so thrilling so individual I wouldnt be surshy

prised if one day-way down the line-Cy Twombly will be known as the great sculptor

who also did some amazing paintings

NYC 2006

II

FALLING BEAUTY Giorgio Agamben

T he sculpture Untitled dated Gaeta 1984 bears the English translation of some lines

from Rilke inscribed on a scroll on the base T hese are not just any old verses but the

four verses concluding the Tenth Elegy and thus the entire cycle of the Duino Elegies

And it is precisely in the Tenth Elegy that Ri lke speaks as if he were describing an

unheard offering-but also a tempest without a name a spiritual hurricane during

which everything in me that was fiber and tissue cracked

The original four lines Twombly transcribes onto his sculpture are as follows

Und wir die an steigendes Gluck

den ken empfonden die Ruhrung

die uns beinah besturzt

wenn ein Gluckliches falIt

And we who think of happiness

ascending would feel the emotion

that almost overwhelms us

when a happy thing foIls

I would like to linger a while on the proximity between the movement in this verse and

that in Twomblys sculpture which bears witness to their connection to Untitled and

which is surely no coincidence

We all know that the Tenth Elegy is a sort of death ceremony certainly not a Christian

one but rather an Egyptian one Right at the end the dead youth who has traversed the

land of Lamentation silently climbs (steigt) the mountain of Ur-Ieid of primordial Pain

And here after this silent ascent the poet introduces the vertical image of the fall

Aber erweckten sie uns die unendlich To ten ein Gleichnis

siehe sie zeigten vielleicht aufdie Katzchen der leeren

Hasel die hangenden oder

meinten den Regen der flllt aufdunkles Erdreich im Fruhjahr

13

But if they were to awaken a symbol for us the endlessly dead

see perhaps they would point to the catkins of the empty

hazels the ones just hanging there or

the rain that falls upon the dark earth in Spring

So as in Twomblys sculpture the idea here is one of a flower a falling plant Rilke had

originally written the catkins of the willow tree but then his friend Elisabeth Aman

Volkart sent him a book on botany and he was able to note that it was not willow but

hazel (Ha5e~ that has hanging flowers In his reply Rilke writes that when he first hears

it it is precisely this fall that the reader must gather and comprehend in the catkins

The idea of the fall in the poem is rendered in metric terms by a true split in the second

and particularly in the third line signaled by a enjambement that interrupts the sense in

a particularly sharp way with a disjointed or (The fracture of the stem or the trunk in

Twomblys sculpture seems to repeat this sharpness)

In the four lines that follow which are the ones Twombly has transcribed onto the

scroll the fracture is further underlined by the fact that in metric terms this verse repshy

resents the breaking of two elegy-type lines into four hemistichs almost as though the

internal caesura in each line had expanded to the point of destroying its unity to the

point of blasting it into two halves

I believe that these considerations can form a useful viaticum for understanding the

formal problem that Twombly who demonstrates that he has intently contemplated the

lesson of the Tenth Elegy proposes in his untitled sculpture In more concise words the

problem is this What is falling beauty Or put yet another way How can we give

form to broken and falling beauty

There comes a point on the creative journey of every great artist every poet when the

image of beauty that he appeared to pursue until then as a continual ascent suddenly

inverts and starts falling directly downwards so to speak It is this topical moment that

finds expression in Twomblys untitled piece in the cracking of the wood that reversing

its upward movement falls back to earth right at the point where the scroll inscribes its

Rilkean motto

In the obscure almost feverish annotations on his translation of Sophocles Holderlin

developed a theory of the caesura that I do not think would be impertinent to recall

here In the textured cut in the line made by the caesura that for this reason he calls

anti-rhythmic suspension what appears writes Holderlin is no longer the alternating

of representations the successive movement of the subject and the sense but the represhy

sen tation itself the p ure word It seems to me that in this vis ionary sculpture it is as

though Twombly has succeeded in giving form to a caesura in d isplaying its sculptural

equivalent In drastically eliminating the floral paraphernalia of Rilkean Jugendstil he

red uces the problem down to its basic form al core And as according to Holderlin the

caesura displays the word itself here it is both the work and the art itself that appears in

the shattering and breaking of the upward movement What I am trying to say is that

the work is not simply a representat ion o f the caesura but is the caesura itself in its

movemen t th e caesura-the caesura that exposes the inactive core of every work the

poin t at which the will of art supporting i t seems almost blinded and suspended For

this reason it is as though the movement of falling beauty has no weight it is not the

work of gravity but a sort of inverse flight like the one Simone Weil had to think of

when she asked Gravity makes things come down wings make them rise What wings

raised to the second power can make things come down without weight

Such is Twom blys gesture in these ex treme sculptures in which every ascent is

reversed and suspended almost a threshold or caesura between an action and a nonshy

action Fall ing beauty It is the point of de-creation when the artist in his supreme way

no longer creates but de-creates the messianic moment which has no possible tide and

in which art mi raculously stands still almost thunderstruck fallen and risen at every

moment

In his essay G iorgio Agamben refers to the Untitled sculpture Gae ta 1984

which is still in the possession of the artist Ill in N icola D el Roscio (ed)

Catalogue Raisonne ofSculpture vol 1 (1946-1997) (Munich 1997) no 7 l

15

Untitled (Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum) 2000 230 x 655 x 45 5 em ca e 8

r6

I

J

-

bull ~

~

bull ~ --

-~ t

Unrid d 2004 125 x 33 x 278 em

ca L 30 (above dCla il)

18

( I

I ( J

--

ntided 2003 40 x 53 x 53 em

Gu22

22

---- -----~

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

tio n of a late masterwork of this artist the 12-part Lepanto series which had already

been exhibited in the Alte Pinakothek in 2002 In the future the Brandhorst Museum

in Munich will be the most important place-after the Menil Collection in Houstonshy

for studying Cy Twomblys art Udo Brandhorst was moreover the initiator for the proshy

ject of presenting the sculptures at the Alte Pinakothek and he has actively supported

this undertaking I warmly thank him for showing us into the artists studio for includshy

ing us in his friendship with the artist and for bringing his enthusiasm for Cy

Twomblys work to the Alte Pinakothek

Thanks are due to all who worked on the first presentation and publication of Cy

Twomblys new sculptures To Paul Winkler the most intimate connoisseur of the work

for directing the installation of the sculptures in Munich and thus triggering monologs

dialogs and choirs on the experience of sculptures aesthetic in space light and time To

Nicola Del Roscio for giving his friendly advice based on years of intimate knowledge of

the artist s work To Erich Gantzert-Castrillo for supervising and positioning the fragile

sculptures with the care of a conservator specializing in handling 20 th-century art It is

my pleasure also to thank the two famous authors of this volume who coming from the

two hemispheres of Cy Twomblys life discuss his sculptures The greatest living

American playwright Edward Albee and one of the most influential contemporary

philosophers Giorgio Agamben Their lucid essays are followed by the sensitive intershy

pretation of my colleague Carla Schulz-Hoffmann who probes into the deeper strata of

Cy Twomblys sculptures These writings are ingeniously complemented by photographs

that were especially taken for this volume Jochen Littkemann has created wonderfully

lucid portraits of the sculptures while Laurenz Berges proves his mastery in capturing the

atmosphere of the Alte Pinakotheks rooms I also wish to thank Cy Twombly collector

and publisher Lothar Schirmer (and his publishing house SchirmerMosel) for facilitatshy

ing the dialog between essays and photographs and thereby creating such a beautiful

book

Friends of Cy Twombly have contributed to this book-it is therefore a gift to the artist

from his friends

8

CYTWOMBLY Edward Albee

Most painters are painters and most sculptors are sculptors Oh really Well yes-genshy

erally speaking this is so at least as public perception And as we shall see public pershy

ception determines accepted view

Let us limit ourselves to 20 th-century Western art That way we can sidestep considerashy

tion of Michelangelo a clear disprover of the maxim (I prefer his sculpture but that is

neither here nor there)

And let us limit ourselves to prime examples of important painters universally known for

their flat wall work but who have made three-dimensional objects as well and see what

happens Degas (surely he is a 20 th-century painter) made lovely sculpture-glorious

dancers and horses (around the time he was painting horses-Iate-ish) These are splenshy

did works and could have been made only by Degas but excluding these from ones

knowledge of Degas does not diminish Degas one bit

The same could be said of Matisse-a painter (and what a painter) who also made fine

sculpture

And look for a moment at a few sculptors who did not always stick to their last shy

Giacometti for example an important sculptor (though his signature elongated figures

do not hold my interest-perhaps there are just too many of them-as much as his earshy

lier less familiar work) and whose paintings and drawings strike me as basically studies

for sculpture-whether they were made as such or not Giacometti is thought of prishy

marily as a sculptor-and so he is

Marcel Duchamp is a very important sculptor whose three-dimensional work transcends

the accepted definition and whose importance lies primarily in his relocating the boundshy

aries of art and whose art about art work is one of the major turning points in the

20 th-century visual experience He painted-mostly early on-but it is his three-dimenshy

sional objects which define his greatness The important Franco-American sculptor

9

Louise Bourg ois has made probably hundreds of works on pap r which are a fascinatshy

ing guide to her unconscio us bu t it is her wooden totems of the early 50s as well as her

later Rooms which will one day penetrate the public consciousn ss sufficiently to place

her properly in d ue hierarchy

Now let us look at three painters whose rhr e-dimensional objects are- to my mind-as

important as their flat works Picasso Rauschenb rg and Cy Twombly

No one doubts Picass s greatness as a painter or h is importance t the history of 20 rh_

century art (though what the p ublic likes is rarely work from h is m ost importan t peri shy

ods) His sculpture-from th cubist work right on th rough except perhaps-again to

my mind-the tedious ceramics is as fi ne as the paintings (drawings graphic work) and

is instructive to any s ulptor or-for that matter-anyone interes ted in the proc sses of

the creative mi nd specifically in the ways that the sculptures echo the three-dimension shy

ality of the paintings (has any 20 rh-century painter been more three-dilnensional than

Picasso) and exist on such a high creative level themselves Whenever I see a Picasso

piece of sculpture (especially the cubist ones of course) I fin d my brea th is taken once

agam

While Degas would not be diminished as an artist were his sculptures not to exist I b 1

that Picasso would be

Among the US painters of the second half of the 20 rh-century (and thro ugh to now) one

stands out to me as a painter who redefIned sculpture (Robert Rausch nb rg) and one

emerges that rare artist equally important in both fi elds equally exciting as painter and

sculptor-Cy Twombly

Rauschenbergs flat work is frequently not flat of course and the Combines an d th e

fully free-standing pieces from the early 90s are important works that make dearer the

preconceptions of his totally flat pieces Would Rauschenberg be less without h is threeshy

dimensional work I think so

Cy Twombly is an artist who has made scul pture almost as long as he has made paint shy

ings but public awareness of it has been sJow in arriving (But again it was not un til

well into his career that people began to sense the worth of his paintings-no t that he

was slow in blooming but the specialness of the work the uniqueness of the vision put

10

- - - - -- -~

off those who have to relate something to some specific other in order to know how

their response should be formulated)

Does Twomblys sculpture look like the kind of work a painter would make No cershy

tainly not Does his painting look like the sort of work a sculptor would make Equally

no Both his paintings and his sculpture look like the extraordinarily individual mysterishy

ous and inevitable art works that an artist of his calibre and thrilling non-referentiality

would make

We can say of Twomblys work-as praise-that we dont know where it comes from

that its sources exist solely in the mind of the artist and that comparisons tell us nothing

Twomblys sculpture looks as though it has always existed and is at the same time totalshy

ly new It refers only to itself (however much we attempt to demystify it) The pieces are

solid airy serious (but never humorless) and say to us Look at me as I am I am simply

this

What a wonder for us that simply this is so thrilling so individual I wouldnt be surshy

prised if one day-way down the line-Cy Twombly will be known as the great sculptor

who also did some amazing paintings

NYC 2006

II

FALLING BEAUTY Giorgio Agamben

T he sculpture Untitled dated Gaeta 1984 bears the English translation of some lines

from Rilke inscribed on a scroll on the base T hese are not just any old verses but the

four verses concluding the Tenth Elegy and thus the entire cycle of the Duino Elegies

And it is precisely in the Tenth Elegy that Ri lke speaks as if he were describing an

unheard offering-but also a tempest without a name a spiritual hurricane during

which everything in me that was fiber and tissue cracked

The original four lines Twombly transcribes onto his sculpture are as follows

Und wir die an steigendes Gluck

den ken empfonden die Ruhrung

die uns beinah besturzt

wenn ein Gluckliches falIt

And we who think of happiness

ascending would feel the emotion

that almost overwhelms us

when a happy thing foIls

I would like to linger a while on the proximity between the movement in this verse and

that in Twomblys sculpture which bears witness to their connection to Untitled and

which is surely no coincidence

We all know that the Tenth Elegy is a sort of death ceremony certainly not a Christian

one but rather an Egyptian one Right at the end the dead youth who has traversed the

land of Lamentation silently climbs (steigt) the mountain of Ur-Ieid of primordial Pain

And here after this silent ascent the poet introduces the vertical image of the fall

Aber erweckten sie uns die unendlich To ten ein Gleichnis

siehe sie zeigten vielleicht aufdie Katzchen der leeren

Hasel die hangenden oder

meinten den Regen der flllt aufdunkles Erdreich im Fruhjahr

13

But if they were to awaken a symbol for us the endlessly dead

see perhaps they would point to the catkins of the empty

hazels the ones just hanging there or

the rain that falls upon the dark earth in Spring

So as in Twomblys sculpture the idea here is one of a flower a falling plant Rilke had

originally written the catkins of the willow tree but then his friend Elisabeth Aman

Volkart sent him a book on botany and he was able to note that it was not willow but

hazel (Ha5e~ that has hanging flowers In his reply Rilke writes that when he first hears

it it is precisely this fall that the reader must gather and comprehend in the catkins

The idea of the fall in the poem is rendered in metric terms by a true split in the second

and particularly in the third line signaled by a enjambement that interrupts the sense in

a particularly sharp way with a disjointed or (The fracture of the stem or the trunk in

Twomblys sculpture seems to repeat this sharpness)

In the four lines that follow which are the ones Twombly has transcribed onto the

scroll the fracture is further underlined by the fact that in metric terms this verse repshy

resents the breaking of two elegy-type lines into four hemistichs almost as though the

internal caesura in each line had expanded to the point of destroying its unity to the

point of blasting it into two halves

I believe that these considerations can form a useful viaticum for understanding the

formal problem that Twombly who demonstrates that he has intently contemplated the

lesson of the Tenth Elegy proposes in his untitled sculpture In more concise words the

problem is this What is falling beauty Or put yet another way How can we give

form to broken and falling beauty

There comes a point on the creative journey of every great artist every poet when the

image of beauty that he appeared to pursue until then as a continual ascent suddenly

inverts and starts falling directly downwards so to speak It is this topical moment that

finds expression in Twomblys untitled piece in the cracking of the wood that reversing

its upward movement falls back to earth right at the point where the scroll inscribes its

Rilkean motto

In the obscure almost feverish annotations on his translation of Sophocles Holderlin

developed a theory of the caesura that I do not think would be impertinent to recall

here In the textured cut in the line made by the caesura that for this reason he calls

anti-rhythmic suspension what appears writes Holderlin is no longer the alternating

of representations the successive movement of the subject and the sense but the represhy

sen tation itself the p ure word It seems to me that in this vis ionary sculpture it is as

though Twombly has succeeded in giving form to a caesura in d isplaying its sculptural

equivalent In drastically eliminating the floral paraphernalia of Rilkean Jugendstil he

red uces the problem down to its basic form al core And as according to Holderlin the

caesura displays the word itself here it is both the work and the art itself that appears in

the shattering and breaking of the upward movement What I am trying to say is that

the work is not simply a representat ion o f the caesura but is the caesura itself in its

movemen t th e caesura-the caesura that exposes the inactive core of every work the

poin t at which the will of art supporting i t seems almost blinded and suspended For

this reason it is as though the movement of falling beauty has no weight it is not the

work of gravity but a sort of inverse flight like the one Simone Weil had to think of

when she asked Gravity makes things come down wings make them rise What wings

raised to the second power can make things come down without weight

Such is Twom blys gesture in these ex treme sculptures in which every ascent is

reversed and suspended almost a threshold or caesura between an action and a nonshy

action Fall ing beauty It is the point of de-creation when the artist in his supreme way

no longer creates but de-creates the messianic moment which has no possible tide and

in which art mi raculously stands still almost thunderstruck fallen and risen at every

moment

In his essay G iorgio Agamben refers to the Untitled sculpture Gae ta 1984

which is still in the possession of the artist Ill in N icola D el Roscio (ed)

Catalogue Raisonne ofSculpture vol 1 (1946-1997) (Munich 1997) no 7 l

15

Untitled (Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum) 2000 230 x 655 x 45 5 em ca e 8

r6

I

J

-

bull ~

~

bull ~ --

-~ t

Unrid d 2004 125 x 33 x 278 em

ca L 30 (above dCla il)

18

( I

I ( J

--

ntided 2003 40 x 53 x 53 em

Gu22

22

---- -----~

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

CYTWOMBLY Edward Albee

Most painters are painters and most sculptors are sculptors Oh really Well yes-genshy

erally speaking this is so at least as public perception And as we shall see public pershy

ception determines accepted view

Let us limit ourselves to 20 th-century Western art That way we can sidestep considerashy

tion of Michelangelo a clear disprover of the maxim (I prefer his sculpture but that is

neither here nor there)

And let us limit ourselves to prime examples of important painters universally known for

their flat wall work but who have made three-dimensional objects as well and see what

happens Degas (surely he is a 20 th-century painter) made lovely sculpture-glorious

dancers and horses (around the time he was painting horses-Iate-ish) These are splenshy

did works and could have been made only by Degas but excluding these from ones

knowledge of Degas does not diminish Degas one bit

The same could be said of Matisse-a painter (and what a painter) who also made fine

sculpture

And look for a moment at a few sculptors who did not always stick to their last shy

Giacometti for example an important sculptor (though his signature elongated figures

do not hold my interest-perhaps there are just too many of them-as much as his earshy

lier less familiar work) and whose paintings and drawings strike me as basically studies

for sculpture-whether they were made as such or not Giacometti is thought of prishy

marily as a sculptor-and so he is

Marcel Duchamp is a very important sculptor whose three-dimensional work transcends

the accepted definition and whose importance lies primarily in his relocating the boundshy

aries of art and whose art about art work is one of the major turning points in the

20 th-century visual experience He painted-mostly early on-but it is his three-dimenshy

sional objects which define his greatness The important Franco-American sculptor

9

Louise Bourg ois has made probably hundreds of works on pap r which are a fascinatshy

ing guide to her unconscio us bu t it is her wooden totems of the early 50s as well as her

later Rooms which will one day penetrate the public consciousn ss sufficiently to place

her properly in d ue hierarchy

Now let us look at three painters whose rhr e-dimensional objects are- to my mind-as

important as their flat works Picasso Rauschenb rg and Cy Twombly

No one doubts Picass s greatness as a painter or h is importance t the history of 20 rh_

century art (though what the p ublic likes is rarely work from h is m ost importan t peri shy

ods) His sculpture-from th cubist work right on th rough except perhaps-again to

my mind-the tedious ceramics is as fi ne as the paintings (drawings graphic work) and

is instructive to any s ulptor or-for that matter-anyone interes ted in the proc sses of

the creative mi nd specifically in the ways that the sculptures echo the three-dimension shy

ality of the paintings (has any 20 rh-century painter been more three-dilnensional than

Picasso) and exist on such a high creative level themselves Whenever I see a Picasso

piece of sculpture (especially the cubist ones of course) I fin d my brea th is taken once

agam

While Degas would not be diminished as an artist were his sculptures not to exist I b 1

that Picasso would be

Among the US painters of the second half of the 20 rh-century (and thro ugh to now) one

stands out to me as a painter who redefIned sculpture (Robert Rausch nb rg) and one

emerges that rare artist equally important in both fi elds equally exciting as painter and

sculptor-Cy Twombly

Rauschenbergs flat work is frequently not flat of course and the Combines an d th e

fully free-standing pieces from the early 90s are important works that make dearer the

preconceptions of his totally flat pieces Would Rauschenberg be less without h is threeshy

dimensional work I think so

Cy Twombly is an artist who has made scul pture almost as long as he has made paint shy

ings but public awareness of it has been sJow in arriving (But again it was not un til

well into his career that people began to sense the worth of his paintings-no t that he

was slow in blooming but the specialness of the work the uniqueness of the vision put

10

- - - - -- -~

off those who have to relate something to some specific other in order to know how

their response should be formulated)

Does Twomblys sculpture look like the kind of work a painter would make No cershy

tainly not Does his painting look like the sort of work a sculptor would make Equally

no Both his paintings and his sculpture look like the extraordinarily individual mysterishy

ous and inevitable art works that an artist of his calibre and thrilling non-referentiality

would make

We can say of Twomblys work-as praise-that we dont know where it comes from

that its sources exist solely in the mind of the artist and that comparisons tell us nothing

Twomblys sculpture looks as though it has always existed and is at the same time totalshy

ly new It refers only to itself (however much we attempt to demystify it) The pieces are

solid airy serious (but never humorless) and say to us Look at me as I am I am simply

this

What a wonder for us that simply this is so thrilling so individual I wouldnt be surshy

prised if one day-way down the line-Cy Twombly will be known as the great sculptor

who also did some amazing paintings

NYC 2006

II

FALLING BEAUTY Giorgio Agamben

T he sculpture Untitled dated Gaeta 1984 bears the English translation of some lines

from Rilke inscribed on a scroll on the base T hese are not just any old verses but the

four verses concluding the Tenth Elegy and thus the entire cycle of the Duino Elegies

And it is precisely in the Tenth Elegy that Ri lke speaks as if he were describing an

unheard offering-but also a tempest without a name a spiritual hurricane during

which everything in me that was fiber and tissue cracked

The original four lines Twombly transcribes onto his sculpture are as follows

Und wir die an steigendes Gluck

den ken empfonden die Ruhrung

die uns beinah besturzt

wenn ein Gluckliches falIt

And we who think of happiness

ascending would feel the emotion

that almost overwhelms us

when a happy thing foIls

I would like to linger a while on the proximity between the movement in this verse and

that in Twomblys sculpture which bears witness to their connection to Untitled and

which is surely no coincidence

We all know that the Tenth Elegy is a sort of death ceremony certainly not a Christian

one but rather an Egyptian one Right at the end the dead youth who has traversed the

land of Lamentation silently climbs (steigt) the mountain of Ur-Ieid of primordial Pain

And here after this silent ascent the poet introduces the vertical image of the fall

Aber erweckten sie uns die unendlich To ten ein Gleichnis

siehe sie zeigten vielleicht aufdie Katzchen der leeren

Hasel die hangenden oder

meinten den Regen der flllt aufdunkles Erdreich im Fruhjahr

13

But if they were to awaken a symbol for us the endlessly dead

see perhaps they would point to the catkins of the empty

hazels the ones just hanging there or

the rain that falls upon the dark earth in Spring

So as in Twomblys sculpture the idea here is one of a flower a falling plant Rilke had

originally written the catkins of the willow tree but then his friend Elisabeth Aman

Volkart sent him a book on botany and he was able to note that it was not willow but

hazel (Ha5e~ that has hanging flowers In his reply Rilke writes that when he first hears

it it is precisely this fall that the reader must gather and comprehend in the catkins

The idea of the fall in the poem is rendered in metric terms by a true split in the second

and particularly in the third line signaled by a enjambement that interrupts the sense in

a particularly sharp way with a disjointed or (The fracture of the stem or the trunk in

Twomblys sculpture seems to repeat this sharpness)

In the four lines that follow which are the ones Twombly has transcribed onto the

scroll the fracture is further underlined by the fact that in metric terms this verse repshy

resents the breaking of two elegy-type lines into four hemistichs almost as though the

internal caesura in each line had expanded to the point of destroying its unity to the

point of blasting it into two halves

I believe that these considerations can form a useful viaticum for understanding the

formal problem that Twombly who demonstrates that he has intently contemplated the

lesson of the Tenth Elegy proposes in his untitled sculpture In more concise words the

problem is this What is falling beauty Or put yet another way How can we give

form to broken and falling beauty

There comes a point on the creative journey of every great artist every poet when the

image of beauty that he appeared to pursue until then as a continual ascent suddenly

inverts and starts falling directly downwards so to speak It is this topical moment that

finds expression in Twomblys untitled piece in the cracking of the wood that reversing

its upward movement falls back to earth right at the point where the scroll inscribes its

Rilkean motto

In the obscure almost feverish annotations on his translation of Sophocles Holderlin

developed a theory of the caesura that I do not think would be impertinent to recall

here In the textured cut in the line made by the caesura that for this reason he calls

anti-rhythmic suspension what appears writes Holderlin is no longer the alternating

of representations the successive movement of the subject and the sense but the represhy

sen tation itself the p ure word It seems to me that in this vis ionary sculpture it is as

though Twombly has succeeded in giving form to a caesura in d isplaying its sculptural

equivalent In drastically eliminating the floral paraphernalia of Rilkean Jugendstil he

red uces the problem down to its basic form al core And as according to Holderlin the

caesura displays the word itself here it is both the work and the art itself that appears in

the shattering and breaking of the upward movement What I am trying to say is that

the work is not simply a representat ion o f the caesura but is the caesura itself in its

movemen t th e caesura-the caesura that exposes the inactive core of every work the

poin t at which the will of art supporting i t seems almost blinded and suspended For

this reason it is as though the movement of falling beauty has no weight it is not the

work of gravity but a sort of inverse flight like the one Simone Weil had to think of

when she asked Gravity makes things come down wings make them rise What wings

raised to the second power can make things come down without weight

Such is Twom blys gesture in these ex treme sculptures in which every ascent is

reversed and suspended almost a threshold or caesura between an action and a nonshy

action Fall ing beauty It is the point of de-creation when the artist in his supreme way

no longer creates but de-creates the messianic moment which has no possible tide and

in which art mi raculously stands still almost thunderstruck fallen and risen at every

moment

In his essay G iorgio Agamben refers to the Untitled sculpture Gae ta 1984

which is still in the possession of the artist Ill in N icola D el Roscio (ed)

Catalogue Raisonne ofSculpture vol 1 (1946-1997) (Munich 1997) no 7 l

15

Untitled (Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum) 2000 230 x 655 x 45 5 em ca e 8

r6

I

J

-

bull ~

~

bull ~ --

-~ t

Unrid d 2004 125 x 33 x 278 em

ca L 30 (above dCla il)

18

( I

I ( J

--

ntided 2003 40 x 53 x 53 em

Gu22

22

---- -----~

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

Louise Bourg ois has made probably hundreds of works on pap r which are a fascinatshy

ing guide to her unconscio us bu t it is her wooden totems of the early 50s as well as her

later Rooms which will one day penetrate the public consciousn ss sufficiently to place

her properly in d ue hierarchy

Now let us look at three painters whose rhr e-dimensional objects are- to my mind-as

important as their flat works Picasso Rauschenb rg and Cy Twombly

No one doubts Picass s greatness as a painter or h is importance t the history of 20 rh_

century art (though what the p ublic likes is rarely work from h is m ost importan t peri shy

ods) His sculpture-from th cubist work right on th rough except perhaps-again to

my mind-the tedious ceramics is as fi ne as the paintings (drawings graphic work) and

is instructive to any s ulptor or-for that matter-anyone interes ted in the proc sses of

the creative mi nd specifically in the ways that the sculptures echo the three-dimension shy

ality of the paintings (has any 20 rh-century painter been more three-dilnensional than

Picasso) and exist on such a high creative level themselves Whenever I see a Picasso

piece of sculpture (especially the cubist ones of course) I fin d my brea th is taken once

agam

While Degas would not be diminished as an artist were his sculptures not to exist I b 1

that Picasso would be

Among the US painters of the second half of the 20 rh-century (and thro ugh to now) one

stands out to me as a painter who redefIned sculpture (Robert Rausch nb rg) and one

emerges that rare artist equally important in both fi elds equally exciting as painter and

sculptor-Cy Twombly

Rauschenbergs flat work is frequently not flat of course and the Combines an d th e

fully free-standing pieces from the early 90s are important works that make dearer the

preconceptions of his totally flat pieces Would Rauschenberg be less without h is threeshy

dimensional work I think so

Cy Twombly is an artist who has made scul pture almost as long as he has made paint shy

ings but public awareness of it has been sJow in arriving (But again it was not un til

well into his career that people began to sense the worth of his paintings-no t that he

was slow in blooming but the specialness of the work the uniqueness of the vision put

10

- - - - -- -~

off those who have to relate something to some specific other in order to know how

their response should be formulated)

Does Twomblys sculpture look like the kind of work a painter would make No cershy

tainly not Does his painting look like the sort of work a sculptor would make Equally

no Both his paintings and his sculpture look like the extraordinarily individual mysterishy

ous and inevitable art works that an artist of his calibre and thrilling non-referentiality

would make

We can say of Twomblys work-as praise-that we dont know where it comes from

that its sources exist solely in the mind of the artist and that comparisons tell us nothing

Twomblys sculpture looks as though it has always existed and is at the same time totalshy

ly new It refers only to itself (however much we attempt to demystify it) The pieces are

solid airy serious (but never humorless) and say to us Look at me as I am I am simply

this

What a wonder for us that simply this is so thrilling so individual I wouldnt be surshy

prised if one day-way down the line-Cy Twombly will be known as the great sculptor

who also did some amazing paintings

NYC 2006

II

FALLING BEAUTY Giorgio Agamben

T he sculpture Untitled dated Gaeta 1984 bears the English translation of some lines

from Rilke inscribed on a scroll on the base T hese are not just any old verses but the

four verses concluding the Tenth Elegy and thus the entire cycle of the Duino Elegies

And it is precisely in the Tenth Elegy that Ri lke speaks as if he were describing an

unheard offering-but also a tempest without a name a spiritual hurricane during

which everything in me that was fiber and tissue cracked

The original four lines Twombly transcribes onto his sculpture are as follows

Und wir die an steigendes Gluck

den ken empfonden die Ruhrung

die uns beinah besturzt

wenn ein Gluckliches falIt

And we who think of happiness

ascending would feel the emotion

that almost overwhelms us

when a happy thing foIls

I would like to linger a while on the proximity between the movement in this verse and

that in Twomblys sculpture which bears witness to their connection to Untitled and

which is surely no coincidence

We all know that the Tenth Elegy is a sort of death ceremony certainly not a Christian

one but rather an Egyptian one Right at the end the dead youth who has traversed the

land of Lamentation silently climbs (steigt) the mountain of Ur-Ieid of primordial Pain

And here after this silent ascent the poet introduces the vertical image of the fall

Aber erweckten sie uns die unendlich To ten ein Gleichnis

siehe sie zeigten vielleicht aufdie Katzchen der leeren

Hasel die hangenden oder

meinten den Regen der flllt aufdunkles Erdreich im Fruhjahr

13

But if they were to awaken a symbol for us the endlessly dead

see perhaps they would point to the catkins of the empty

hazels the ones just hanging there or

the rain that falls upon the dark earth in Spring

So as in Twomblys sculpture the idea here is one of a flower a falling plant Rilke had

originally written the catkins of the willow tree but then his friend Elisabeth Aman

Volkart sent him a book on botany and he was able to note that it was not willow but

hazel (Ha5e~ that has hanging flowers In his reply Rilke writes that when he first hears

it it is precisely this fall that the reader must gather and comprehend in the catkins

The idea of the fall in the poem is rendered in metric terms by a true split in the second

and particularly in the third line signaled by a enjambement that interrupts the sense in

a particularly sharp way with a disjointed or (The fracture of the stem or the trunk in

Twomblys sculpture seems to repeat this sharpness)

In the four lines that follow which are the ones Twombly has transcribed onto the

scroll the fracture is further underlined by the fact that in metric terms this verse repshy

resents the breaking of two elegy-type lines into four hemistichs almost as though the

internal caesura in each line had expanded to the point of destroying its unity to the

point of blasting it into two halves

I believe that these considerations can form a useful viaticum for understanding the

formal problem that Twombly who demonstrates that he has intently contemplated the

lesson of the Tenth Elegy proposes in his untitled sculpture In more concise words the

problem is this What is falling beauty Or put yet another way How can we give

form to broken and falling beauty

There comes a point on the creative journey of every great artist every poet when the

image of beauty that he appeared to pursue until then as a continual ascent suddenly

inverts and starts falling directly downwards so to speak It is this topical moment that

finds expression in Twomblys untitled piece in the cracking of the wood that reversing

its upward movement falls back to earth right at the point where the scroll inscribes its

Rilkean motto

In the obscure almost feverish annotations on his translation of Sophocles Holderlin

developed a theory of the caesura that I do not think would be impertinent to recall

here In the textured cut in the line made by the caesura that for this reason he calls

anti-rhythmic suspension what appears writes Holderlin is no longer the alternating

of representations the successive movement of the subject and the sense but the represhy

sen tation itself the p ure word It seems to me that in this vis ionary sculpture it is as

though Twombly has succeeded in giving form to a caesura in d isplaying its sculptural

equivalent In drastically eliminating the floral paraphernalia of Rilkean Jugendstil he

red uces the problem down to its basic form al core And as according to Holderlin the

caesura displays the word itself here it is both the work and the art itself that appears in

the shattering and breaking of the upward movement What I am trying to say is that

the work is not simply a representat ion o f the caesura but is the caesura itself in its

movemen t th e caesura-the caesura that exposes the inactive core of every work the

poin t at which the will of art supporting i t seems almost blinded and suspended For

this reason it is as though the movement of falling beauty has no weight it is not the

work of gravity but a sort of inverse flight like the one Simone Weil had to think of

when she asked Gravity makes things come down wings make them rise What wings

raised to the second power can make things come down without weight

Such is Twom blys gesture in these ex treme sculptures in which every ascent is

reversed and suspended almost a threshold or caesura between an action and a nonshy

action Fall ing beauty It is the point of de-creation when the artist in his supreme way

no longer creates but de-creates the messianic moment which has no possible tide and

in which art mi raculously stands still almost thunderstruck fallen and risen at every

moment

In his essay G iorgio Agamben refers to the Untitled sculpture Gae ta 1984

which is still in the possession of the artist Ill in N icola D el Roscio (ed)

Catalogue Raisonne ofSculpture vol 1 (1946-1997) (Munich 1997) no 7 l

15

Untitled (Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum) 2000 230 x 655 x 45 5 em ca e 8

r6

I

J

-

bull ~

~

bull ~ --

-~ t

Unrid d 2004 125 x 33 x 278 em

ca L 30 (above dCla il)

18

( I

I ( J

--

ntided 2003 40 x 53 x 53 em

Gu22

22

---- -----~

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

off those who have to relate something to some specific other in order to know how

their response should be formulated)

Does Twomblys sculpture look like the kind of work a painter would make No cershy

tainly not Does his painting look like the sort of work a sculptor would make Equally

no Both his paintings and his sculpture look like the extraordinarily individual mysterishy

ous and inevitable art works that an artist of his calibre and thrilling non-referentiality

would make

We can say of Twomblys work-as praise-that we dont know where it comes from

that its sources exist solely in the mind of the artist and that comparisons tell us nothing

Twomblys sculpture looks as though it has always existed and is at the same time totalshy

ly new It refers only to itself (however much we attempt to demystify it) The pieces are

solid airy serious (but never humorless) and say to us Look at me as I am I am simply

this

What a wonder for us that simply this is so thrilling so individual I wouldnt be surshy

prised if one day-way down the line-Cy Twombly will be known as the great sculptor

who also did some amazing paintings

NYC 2006

II

FALLING BEAUTY Giorgio Agamben

T he sculpture Untitled dated Gaeta 1984 bears the English translation of some lines

from Rilke inscribed on a scroll on the base T hese are not just any old verses but the

four verses concluding the Tenth Elegy and thus the entire cycle of the Duino Elegies

And it is precisely in the Tenth Elegy that Ri lke speaks as if he were describing an

unheard offering-but also a tempest without a name a spiritual hurricane during

which everything in me that was fiber and tissue cracked

The original four lines Twombly transcribes onto his sculpture are as follows

Und wir die an steigendes Gluck

den ken empfonden die Ruhrung

die uns beinah besturzt

wenn ein Gluckliches falIt

And we who think of happiness

ascending would feel the emotion

that almost overwhelms us

when a happy thing foIls

I would like to linger a while on the proximity between the movement in this verse and

that in Twomblys sculpture which bears witness to their connection to Untitled and

which is surely no coincidence

We all know that the Tenth Elegy is a sort of death ceremony certainly not a Christian

one but rather an Egyptian one Right at the end the dead youth who has traversed the

land of Lamentation silently climbs (steigt) the mountain of Ur-Ieid of primordial Pain

And here after this silent ascent the poet introduces the vertical image of the fall

Aber erweckten sie uns die unendlich To ten ein Gleichnis

siehe sie zeigten vielleicht aufdie Katzchen der leeren

Hasel die hangenden oder

meinten den Regen der flllt aufdunkles Erdreich im Fruhjahr

13

But if they were to awaken a symbol for us the endlessly dead

see perhaps they would point to the catkins of the empty

hazels the ones just hanging there or

the rain that falls upon the dark earth in Spring

So as in Twomblys sculpture the idea here is one of a flower a falling plant Rilke had

originally written the catkins of the willow tree but then his friend Elisabeth Aman

Volkart sent him a book on botany and he was able to note that it was not willow but

hazel (Ha5e~ that has hanging flowers In his reply Rilke writes that when he first hears

it it is precisely this fall that the reader must gather and comprehend in the catkins

The idea of the fall in the poem is rendered in metric terms by a true split in the second

and particularly in the third line signaled by a enjambement that interrupts the sense in

a particularly sharp way with a disjointed or (The fracture of the stem or the trunk in

Twomblys sculpture seems to repeat this sharpness)

In the four lines that follow which are the ones Twombly has transcribed onto the

scroll the fracture is further underlined by the fact that in metric terms this verse repshy

resents the breaking of two elegy-type lines into four hemistichs almost as though the

internal caesura in each line had expanded to the point of destroying its unity to the

point of blasting it into two halves

I believe that these considerations can form a useful viaticum for understanding the

formal problem that Twombly who demonstrates that he has intently contemplated the

lesson of the Tenth Elegy proposes in his untitled sculpture In more concise words the

problem is this What is falling beauty Or put yet another way How can we give

form to broken and falling beauty

There comes a point on the creative journey of every great artist every poet when the

image of beauty that he appeared to pursue until then as a continual ascent suddenly

inverts and starts falling directly downwards so to speak It is this topical moment that

finds expression in Twomblys untitled piece in the cracking of the wood that reversing

its upward movement falls back to earth right at the point where the scroll inscribes its

Rilkean motto

In the obscure almost feverish annotations on his translation of Sophocles Holderlin

developed a theory of the caesura that I do not think would be impertinent to recall

here In the textured cut in the line made by the caesura that for this reason he calls

anti-rhythmic suspension what appears writes Holderlin is no longer the alternating

of representations the successive movement of the subject and the sense but the represhy

sen tation itself the p ure word It seems to me that in this vis ionary sculpture it is as

though Twombly has succeeded in giving form to a caesura in d isplaying its sculptural

equivalent In drastically eliminating the floral paraphernalia of Rilkean Jugendstil he

red uces the problem down to its basic form al core And as according to Holderlin the

caesura displays the word itself here it is both the work and the art itself that appears in

the shattering and breaking of the upward movement What I am trying to say is that

the work is not simply a representat ion o f the caesura but is the caesura itself in its

movemen t th e caesura-the caesura that exposes the inactive core of every work the

poin t at which the will of art supporting i t seems almost blinded and suspended For

this reason it is as though the movement of falling beauty has no weight it is not the

work of gravity but a sort of inverse flight like the one Simone Weil had to think of

when she asked Gravity makes things come down wings make them rise What wings

raised to the second power can make things come down without weight

Such is Twom blys gesture in these ex treme sculptures in which every ascent is

reversed and suspended almost a threshold or caesura between an action and a nonshy

action Fall ing beauty It is the point of de-creation when the artist in his supreme way

no longer creates but de-creates the messianic moment which has no possible tide and

in which art mi raculously stands still almost thunderstruck fallen and risen at every

moment

In his essay G iorgio Agamben refers to the Untitled sculpture Gae ta 1984

which is still in the possession of the artist Ill in N icola D el Roscio (ed)

Catalogue Raisonne ofSculpture vol 1 (1946-1997) (Munich 1997) no 7 l

15

Untitled (Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum) 2000 230 x 655 x 45 5 em ca e 8

r6

I

J

-

bull ~

~

bull ~ --

-~ t

Unrid d 2004 125 x 33 x 278 em

ca L 30 (above dCla il)

18

( I

I ( J

--

ntided 2003 40 x 53 x 53 em

Gu22

22

---- -----~

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

FALLING BEAUTY Giorgio Agamben

T he sculpture Untitled dated Gaeta 1984 bears the English translation of some lines

from Rilke inscribed on a scroll on the base T hese are not just any old verses but the

four verses concluding the Tenth Elegy and thus the entire cycle of the Duino Elegies

And it is precisely in the Tenth Elegy that Ri lke speaks as if he were describing an

unheard offering-but also a tempest without a name a spiritual hurricane during

which everything in me that was fiber and tissue cracked

The original four lines Twombly transcribes onto his sculpture are as follows

Und wir die an steigendes Gluck

den ken empfonden die Ruhrung

die uns beinah besturzt

wenn ein Gluckliches falIt

And we who think of happiness

ascending would feel the emotion

that almost overwhelms us

when a happy thing foIls

I would like to linger a while on the proximity between the movement in this verse and

that in Twomblys sculpture which bears witness to their connection to Untitled and

which is surely no coincidence

We all know that the Tenth Elegy is a sort of death ceremony certainly not a Christian

one but rather an Egyptian one Right at the end the dead youth who has traversed the

land of Lamentation silently climbs (steigt) the mountain of Ur-Ieid of primordial Pain

And here after this silent ascent the poet introduces the vertical image of the fall

Aber erweckten sie uns die unendlich To ten ein Gleichnis

siehe sie zeigten vielleicht aufdie Katzchen der leeren

Hasel die hangenden oder

meinten den Regen der flllt aufdunkles Erdreich im Fruhjahr

13

But if they were to awaken a symbol for us the endlessly dead

see perhaps they would point to the catkins of the empty

hazels the ones just hanging there or

the rain that falls upon the dark earth in Spring

So as in Twomblys sculpture the idea here is one of a flower a falling plant Rilke had

originally written the catkins of the willow tree but then his friend Elisabeth Aman

Volkart sent him a book on botany and he was able to note that it was not willow but

hazel (Ha5e~ that has hanging flowers In his reply Rilke writes that when he first hears

it it is precisely this fall that the reader must gather and comprehend in the catkins

The idea of the fall in the poem is rendered in metric terms by a true split in the second

and particularly in the third line signaled by a enjambement that interrupts the sense in

a particularly sharp way with a disjointed or (The fracture of the stem or the trunk in

Twomblys sculpture seems to repeat this sharpness)

In the four lines that follow which are the ones Twombly has transcribed onto the

scroll the fracture is further underlined by the fact that in metric terms this verse repshy

resents the breaking of two elegy-type lines into four hemistichs almost as though the

internal caesura in each line had expanded to the point of destroying its unity to the

point of blasting it into two halves

I believe that these considerations can form a useful viaticum for understanding the

formal problem that Twombly who demonstrates that he has intently contemplated the

lesson of the Tenth Elegy proposes in his untitled sculpture In more concise words the

problem is this What is falling beauty Or put yet another way How can we give

form to broken and falling beauty

There comes a point on the creative journey of every great artist every poet when the

image of beauty that he appeared to pursue until then as a continual ascent suddenly

inverts and starts falling directly downwards so to speak It is this topical moment that

finds expression in Twomblys untitled piece in the cracking of the wood that reversing

its upward movement falls back to earth right at the point where the scroll inscribes its

Rilkean motto

In the obscure almost feverish annotations on his translation of Sophocles Holderlin

developed a theory of the caesura that I do not think would be impertinent to recall

here In the textured cut in the line made by the caesura that for this reason he calls

anti-rhythmic suspension what appears writes Holderlin is no longer the alternating

of representations the successive movement of the subject and the sense but the represhy

sen tation itself the p ure word It seems to me that in this vis ionary sculpture it is as

though Twombly has succeeded in giving form to a caesura in d isplaying its sculptural

equivalent In drastically eliminating the floral paraphernalia of Rilkean Jugendstil he

red uces the problem down to its basic form al core And as according to Holderlin the

caesura displays the word itself here it is both the work and the art itself that appears in

the shattering and breaking of the upward movement What I am trying to say is that

the work is not simply a representat ion o f the caesura but is the caesura itself in its

movemen t th e caesura-the caesura that exposes the inactive core of every work the

poin t at which the will of art supporting i t seems almost blinded and suspended For

this reason it is as though the movement of falling beauty has no weight it is not the

work of gravity but a sort of inverse flight like the one Simone Weil had to think of

when she asked Gravity makes things come down wings make them rise What wings

raised to the second power can make things come down without weight

Such is Twom blys gesture in these ex treme sculptures in which every ascent is

reversed and suspended almost a threshold or caesura between an action and a nonshy

action Fall ing beauty It is the point of de-creation when the artist in his supreme way

no longer creates but de-creates the messianic moment which has no possible tide and

in which art mi raculously stands still almost thunderstruck fallen and risen at every

moment

In his essay G iorgio Agamben refers to the Untitled sculpture Gae ta 1984

which is still in the possession of the artist Ill in N icola D el Roscio (ed)

Catalogue Raisonne ofSculpture vol 1 (1946-1997) (Munich 1997) no 7 l

15

Untitled (Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum) 2000 230 x 655 x 45 5 em ca e 8

r6

I

J

-

bull ~

~

bull ~ --

-~ t

Unrid d 2004 125 x 33 x 278 em

ca L 30 (above dCla il)

18

( I

I ( J

--

ntided 2003 40 x 53 x 53 em

Gu22

22

---- -----~

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

But if they were to awaken a symbol for us the endlessly dead

see perhaps they would point to the catkins of the empty

hazels the ones just hanging there or

the rain that falls upon the dark earth in Spring

So as in Twomblys sculpture the idea here is one of a flower a falling plant Rilke had

originally written the catkins of the willow tree but then his friend Elisabeth Aman

Volkart sent him a book on botany and he was able to note that it was not willow but

hazel (Ha5e~ that has hanging flowers In his reply Rilke writes that when he first hears

it it is precisely this fall that the reader must gather and comprehend in the catkins

The idea of the fall in the poem is rendered in metric terms by a true split in the second

and particularly in the third line signaled by a enjambement that interrupts the sense in

a particularly sharp way with a disjointed or (The fracture of the stem or the trunk in

Twomblys sculpture seems to repeat this sharpness)

In the four lines that follow which are the ones Twombly has transcribed onto the

scroll the fracture is further underlined by the fact that in metric terms this verse repshy

resents the breaking of two elegy-type lines into four hemistichs almost as though the

internal caesura in each line had expanded to the point of destroying its unity to the

point of blasting it into two halves

I believe that these considerations can form a useful viaticum for understanding the

formal problem that Twombly who demonstrates that he has intently contemplated the

lesson of the Tenth Elegy proposes in his untitled sculpture In more concise words the

problem is this What is falling beauty Or put yet another way How can we give

form to broken and falling beauty

There comes a point on the creative journey of every great artist every poet when the

image of beauty that he appeared to pursue until then as a continual ascent suddenly

inverts and starts falling directly downwards so to speak It is this topical moment that

finds expression in Twomblys untitled piece in the cracking of the wood that reversing

its upward movement falls back to earth right at the point where the scroll inscribes its

Rilkean motto

In the obscure almost feverish annotations on his translation of Sophocles Holderlin

developed a theory of the caesura that I do not think would be impertinent to recall

here In the textured cut in the line made by the caesura that for this reason he calls

anti-rhythmic suspension what appears writes Holderlin is no longer the alternating

of representations the successive movement of the subject and the sense but the represhy

sen tation itself the p ure word It seems to me that in this vis ionary sculpture it is as

though Twombly has succeeded in giving form to a caesura in d isplaying its sculptural

equivalent In drastically eliminating the floral paraphernalia of Rilkean Jugendstil he

red uces the problem down to its basic form al core And as according to Holderlin the

caesura displays the word itself here it is both the work and the art itself that appears in

the shattering and breaking of the upward movement What I am trying to say is that

the work is not simply a representat ion o f the caesura but is the caesura itself in its

movemen t th e caesura-the caesura that exposes the inactive core of every work the

poin t at which the will of art supporting i t seems almost blinded and suspended For

this reason it is as though the movement of falling beauty has no weight it is not the

work of gravity but a sort of inverse flight like the one Simone Weil had to think of

when she asked Gravity makes things come down wings make them rise What wings

raised to the second power can make things come down without weight

Such is Twom blys gesture in these ex treme sculptures in which every ascent is

reversed and suspended almost a threshold or caesura between an action and a nonshy

action Fall ing beauty It is the point of de-creation when the artist in his supreme way

no longer creates but de-creates the messianic moment which has no possible tide and

in which art mi raculously stands still almost thunderstruck fallen and risen at every

moment

In his essay G iorgio Agamben refers to the Untitled sculpture Gae ta 1984

which is still in the possession of the artist Ill in N icola D el Roscio (ed)

Catalogue Raisonne ofSculpture vol 1 (1946-1997) (Munich 1997) no 7 l

15

Untitled (Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum) 2000 230 x 655 x 45 5 em ca e 8

r6

I

J

-

bull ~

~

bull ~ --

-~ t

Unrid d 2004 125 x 33 x 278 em

ca L 30 (above dCla il)

18

( I

I ( J

--

ntided 2003 40 x 53 x 53 em

Gu22

22

---- -----~

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

sen tation itself the p ure word It seems to me that in this vis ionary sculpture it is as

though Twombly has succeeded in giving form to a caesura in d isplaying its sculptural

equivalent In drastically eliminating the floral paraphernalia of Rilkean Jugendstil he

red uces the problem down to its basic form al core And as according to Holderlin the

caesura displays the word itself here it is both the work and the art itself that appears in

the shattering and breaking of the upward movement What I am trying to say is that

the work is not simply a representat ion o f the caesura but is the caesura itself in its

movemen t th e caesura-the caesura that exposes the inactive core of every work the

poin t at which the will of art supporting i t seems almost blinded and suspended For

this reason it is as though the movement of falling beauty has no weight it is not the

work of gravity but a sort of inverse flight like the one Simone Weil had to think of

when she asked Gravity makes things come down wings make them rise What wings

raised to the second power can make things come down without weight

Such is Twom blys gesture in these ex treme sculptures in which every ascent is

reversed and suspended almost a threshold or caesura between an action and a nonshy

action Fall ing beauty It is the point of de-creation when the artist in his supreme way

no longer creates but de-creates the messianic moment which has no possible tide and

in which art mi raculously stands still almost thunderstruck fallen and risen at every

moment

In his essay G iorgio Agamben refers to the Untitled sculpture Gae ta 1984

which is still in the possession of the artist Ill in N icola D el Roscio (ed)

Catalogue Raisonne ofSculpture vol 1 (1946-1997) (Munich 1997) no 7 l

15

Untitled (Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum) 2000 230 x 655 x 45 5 em ca e 8

r6

I

J

-

bull ~

~

bull ~ --

-~ t

Unrid d 2004 125 x 33 x 278 em

ca L 30 (above dCla il)

18

( I

I ( J

--

ntided 2003 40 x 53 x 53 em

Gu22

22

---- -----~

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

Untitled (Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum) 2000 230 x 655 x 45 5 em ca e 8

r6

I

J

-

bull ~

~

bull ~ --

-~ t

Unrid d 2004 125 x 33 x 278 em

ca L 30 (above dCla il)

18

( I

I ( J

--

ntided 2003 40 x 53 x 53 em

Gu22

22

---- -----~

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

I

J

-

bull ~

~

bull ~ --

-~ t

Unrid d 2004 125 x 33 x 278 em

ca L 30 (above dCla il)

18

( I

I ( J

--

ntided 2003 40 x 53 x 53 em

Gu22

22

---- -----~

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

Unrid d 2004 125 x 33 x 278 em

ca L 30 (above dCla il)

18

( I

I ( J

--

ntided 2003 40 x 53 x 53 em

Gu22

22

---- -----~

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

( I

I ( J

--

ntided 2003 40 x 53 x 53 em

Gu22

22

---- -----~

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

--

ntided 2003 40 x 53 x 53 em

Gu22

22

---- -----~

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

TO FEEL ALL THINGS IN ALL WAYS New sculptures by Cy Twombly

Carla Schulz-Hoffmann

Cy Twomblys sculptures join in a very subtle and straightforward manner the most disshy

tinct extremes Trivial everyday materials found objects turn into mysterious monuments

seemingly shrouded in mist into gravestones hybrid towers from archaic cultures or

fragile structures that kindle a wealth of widely differing associations Shades of white in

an astonishing range of nuances only here and there accented by a few sparing touches of

color endow these works with an aura of imperviousness and mystery but also a wealth

that can only be grasped emotionally and not through reason With paint splashed as

though without intent running in streaks and with plaster applied thickly and clumping

to create amorphous shapes they convey a sense of not being finished and of containing

the potential to change Nothing is unequivocally and irrevocably defined everything is

upheld as potentiality-the triviality of the simple basic forms as well as the substantive

claim of a monument laden with meaning From the imperfection of the shapes which

often seem captured in processes of evolving and decaying of waking and dreaming a

delicate balance develops a state of suspendedness that enfolds both past and future

The whi te of the sculptures binds any number of possi ble colors that have not yet

found their manifestation or deliberately conceal it This corresponds to an intuitively

correlating reality which accumulates the near and the far the seen and the heard

knowledge and sensory perception all in one great cosmos and in one state of consciousshy

ness However all this does not take place in the sense of appropriation for as Roland

Barthes puts it aptly Lart de TW-cest la sa moralite-et aussi son extreme singularshy

ite historique-ne veut rien saisir1

With the certainty of a somnambulist Twombly combines different literary musical and

sculptural stimuli memories from the preconscious of the past and present in a timeless

visual idiom Its meditative unity and sensory intensity holds in concentrated form the

entire cosmos of human feelings moods and desires without constraining or apodicti shy

cally defining anything Twomblys art thus marks a line in Nlodernity that favors the

presence of timelessness and the positive force of in the best sense uncivilized free

thought to counteract the power of the factual the banality of the quotidian

99

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

More clearly than in his paintings written character hL e to form legible lines of writing

in Cy Twom bly sculptures Dedications sen ten es indeed eJuire verses emerge- allowshy

ing cross-refer nce to li terary sources and associative combinati ns of meaning

One stele-like sculpture with a broad substructure made of everyday objects- found

objects and leftov rs of domestic life placed one on top of the other to form a t wershy

bears the dedication to a certain Alvaro de Campos (pp 35- 37) Beneath it we read the

initially mysterious statement To feel all things in all ways which at the same time

establishes a direct link to Twomblys creative notion of looking at reality as a wealth of

interlinked elements that can be experienced intuitively

In another sculpture that is quite comparable in structure and reminis ent with its

tilted upper structure of an anci nt plough (a motif that crops up repeatedly [pp

39-41]) we read under the h adline Demeter Departure of ripolemos the verse

Hello keeper of sheep

There on the side of the road

What does the blowing

Win say to you

According to Greek mythology riptolemos2 (th beloved of the Goddess of Fertility

Demeter whom sh gifted wi th the art of planting wheat) traveled the world teaching

men to plough and sow On one level and with a view to the passage from the poem we

can make the connection to distant Arcadia to an unbroken f rm of natural rural life

This is also alluded to in the plough motif and the bottom element us d in both sculpshy

tures which s ms like one of those wood n troughs used for baking bread turned

upside down

A far broader horizon opens before lLS if we relate the texts on both sculptures teach

other The mo nument in memo ry of Alvaro de Campos is dedicated to one of the

numerous fictitio us lives of Fernando Pessoa one of the m t influential Portuguese

poets of the 20rh century and the author of poetic prose texts Pessoa clad his ego in

more than eigh ty distinct heteronyms each with its own biography characters and

roles His mo t prominent personas were Alberto Caeiro Ricardo Reis Bernardo Soares

and that Alvaro de Campos The latter took for his motto in life the sensing of reality in

all its facets as he variou ly elaborated in his poem Times Passage There w read

To feel everything in ev ry way

To live very thing from all sides

IOO

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

To be the same thing in all ways

Possible at the same time

To realize in oneself all humanity at all moments

In one scattered extravagant complete and aloo f moment3

Tellingly the above call to the shepherds likewise stems from a Pessoa persona Alberto

Caeiro whose most impo rtant cycle of works is dedicated to the keeper of the sheep4

H e supplements and expands the empathetic approach to reality by deploying the catshy

egory of the ephemeral of the blurred and the unstable The shepherd is not the keeper

of a real herd as Pessoa has his protagonist declare but instead of the infinite wealth of

his own though ts He hopes to track them down in the winds fl eeting messages there

on the roadside The analogy to Twomblys work could hardly be more breathtaking To

feel all in everything and to hearken to the mysteries lying beyond well-trodden paths

T h is is the claim forcefully made by Twomblys work At the same time his sculptures

are don1inated-in the sense of Joan Mira- by immobile movement by the eloshy

quence of silence which shrouds them magically as if in a cocoon

The perfection of the imperfect of the restrai ned and moreover crude gesture that

does not seek to label instills one scul pture (n1ade of circular vessels stacked upsideshy

down and bearing the inscrip tion Beauty is a promise of happiness [po 23J) with an

ironic as well as a melancholic component This travesty of a birthday or wedding cake is

covered in thickly applied white streaks of plaster and color con tradicting any customshy

ary notion of beauty and along with the wooden sti rrer attached to it ho rizontally makes

it resemble an explosive The quotation on beauty appears in the works of English writer

and statesman Edmund Burke (1 729-1 797) and also of French novelist Stendhal

(1783- 1842) al though Americans primarily tend to associate it with the latter-albeit

with a decisive twist fo r Stendhal speaks of beauty that is not more than a promise of

happinessG

Yet Twombly articulates Stendhals doubts as to the natural p ropinquity of beauty and

happiness th rough his treatlnen t and shaping of materials thereby maki ng that promise

seem vague and fleeting An indisti nct feeling of sorrow arises that is increased in anothshy

er sculp ture which is in the context of the other works surprisingly strong in color (pp

29- 31) A rectangular base upon it another shape narrowing at the top both painted

coarsely white are crowned with paper fl owers in green yellow purple and red tones

T heir beauty seems to be destin ed for death and- as jf pausing in their last breathshy

they hold on to a pale reflection of their former exis tenc

101

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

The colors of these flowers are to be found applied furiously on large canvases in the

artists 12-part cycle of paintings devoted to the Battle of Lepanto Unusually bright

almost risky scales of color define the drama of this sequence of pictures that take as

their theme one of the most symbol-laden battles in human history On October 7

1571 the Holy League an alliance of Spanish Venetian and Papist troops led by Don

Juan dAustria was outnumbered by but beat the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (today

Nafpaktos) in the Gulf of Corinth initiating the decline of Ottoman predominance of

the Mediterranean

Yet what might interest a living abstract artist in an historical event that is present to

us today merely as a well recalled date in history but is otherwise lost to the mists of the

past

Twombly as early as 1957 when he moved to Italy became preoccupied with the

diverse cultural influences and mythological traditions of the Mediterranean countries

This is evident in related titles for his works From his studio in Gaeta located between

Rome and Naples Twombly overlooks a port in use since Roman days where today US

naval vessels lie at anchor His place of birth namely Lexington in Virginia where he

painted the Lepanto pictures is home to a renowned military academy and is also the

center of the still very lively cult surrounding the American War of Independence

Lepanto is far removed from all this indeed the series develops as it were the antishy

thetical counterpart to all forms of an unquestioning acceptance of reality and to the

cult of history Based on the historical sequence Lepanto conveys the climate and the

mood of an extra-temporal existential situation marked by extreme emotions

Reports from eyewitnesses reveal that the sea battle took place on a very bright day

and that against all expectations the Leagues slow ships beat the elegant gilded and far

more glorious Turkish fleet in a battle that darkened the skies and that saw thousands

slaughtered as though in a blood rage All this is reflected in Lepanto albeit not in the

sense of an approximation to the facts but to the mood It is as if the sea the day flooded

in sunlight gleaming marvelously and yet drenched in blood were made palpable to all

senses With this if you will Twombly proposes a quite different more radical form of

history painting that at once entails its impossibility This is not about objectifiable facts

but about an overall context that comprises all the inconsistencies and contradictions of

memory and perception

The sensory intensity of the battle fray in the sculpture has given way to melancholy

The flowers are made of crumpled Kleenex tissues dipped in paint and kept by Twombly

from his work on the pictures s While celebrating the triumph of the victors and yet

102

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

honoring the dead they are withering It is no coincidence that the sculpture evokes a

festive and yet elegiac atmosphere It is remin iscent of the leftovers of an opulent party

and of a decorated catafalque whose gloriously colored ornament already contains traces

of the decay that will set in Strangely like almost all his sculptures it thus conveys more

strongly than his paintings that aura of an am bience influenced by Classicism someshy

thing familiar to Twombly in its typically American form from Virginia T he sculptures

evidently reflect the particular historical and geographical situation of a state which still

seems to breathe history today and where architecture and countryside exude a specific

atmosphere of the momentary and of leisure

Here the decisive moment of tranquility between extremes between the bounty of life

and standstill between beauty and its irrevocable end can be felt distinctly in the stele

raised on top of three cubes and made from two juxtaposed wooden planks (p 17)

Letters-fleeting and seemingly unintentionally applied in blue fragments with dried

drips of paint-form to spell out the Buddhist mantra O M MA NI PAD ME HUM Its

meaning cannot be conclusively decoded T he popular translation I bow down before

Him who sits in the Lotus blossom does not reflect its ambivalence but that does not

matter Instead what counts is that through constant repetition of the syllables a permashy

nent flow arises and language gradually loses its meaning as a reference to reality Instead

it is experienced as pure empty form Language as a means of communication words in

their function as signs symbolizing things-all this is transcended to a higher form of

conscIousness

References to Buddhist notions are to be found throughout Twomblys ~uvre where

(as is generally typical of his approach) they are combined with different levels of meanshy

ing thereby keeping all questions as to meaning unresolved We must desist from linking

Twomblys associative and intuitive combinatory method too unequivocally to a specific

meaning as this would work against the very nature of this method We may safely

assume that the prominent use of the mantras (appearing as early as in the 1982 largeshy

format drawing Suma 9) as well as in the use of the lotus flower and of the wheel serves as

reference to lifes core as bounty in a vacuum as peace in the center of the maelstrom of

movement

The tense concentration a distinguishing mark of all his works is especially accented in

the numerous sculptures which may emphatically be termed monuments They are all

of a comparable basic type On rectangular bases or oval wooden troughs turned upside

down (pp 35-37 39-41) tower round or angular superstructures made of a variety of

103

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

materials for instance crowns of large paper flowers (pp 50-51) coarsely worked pieces

of wood or found objects (pp 21 65-67 70-71 73) vertically positioned thin planks

(pp 25 35-37) or round discs (pp 58-61) These creations are often covered with

lumps of plaster to the point of distortedness (pp 26-27) Their kinetic energy ie their

true core seems to pull together inside The sculptures rest in themselves protect themshy

selves and the secret they conceal within

Restrained sensuousness characterizes one sculpture (p 21) that is accentuated by

specks of red color On its long side there emerges an only partly decipherable inscripshy

tion possibly the words wings and word that along with the female name Thea are

reminiscent in their elegiac tone of John Keats Hyperion fragment recounting in the

romantic language of the early 19 rh century the Olympic gods triumph over their ancesshy

tors Here Thea sister and wife of the Titan Hyperion and mother of sun god Helios

takes on the role of the character suffering from the changes mediating and vainly seekshy

ing a way out 10

A similarly restrained mode a sense of being locked in is expressed in both rigorously

constructed sculptures that are only sparingly covered by plaster On them one can bareshy

ly make out the scribbled letters of the words Levkon and Repos Telos (= end) or

Tele (= distance) is to be read on the one (pp 70-71) With bright wings on the

other (p 73) The sculptures are reminiscent of gravestones and together with the text

(the French word Repos is also used in Greek in the sense of a resting place) suggest a

specific reference to Levkon I under whose rule in the 4rh century BC the burial culshy

ture of the Scythians and Greeks reached its zenith in the colony of Panticapaeum on

the Black Sea coast The king was probably buried there The entrance to the famous

Royal Mound was in the vernacular called the vagina or arrowhead associations

which Twombly could have combined here with a hymn to Venus in which the goddess

of immortal birds is borne to Earth with bright wings 11

However the importance of this should not be overrated either as the focus evidently

is on parallel moods and emotions that bring these historical references to life

Something similar is true for the rigorously structured monument with the title In

Memory 0Babur (p 25) which is distinguished by the dedication inscribed thinly into

the bases plaster coat The writing jotted down in childlike manner dominates the

solemnly barren gravestone precisely because it is so delicate Thereby it draws all attenshy

tion to a possibly underlying secret The name Babur triggers associations with some

remote Oriental empire The Tiger 12 which is what the name means in Persian was

Emperor of India in the 16 rh century and founded the Mogul Empire He was a poet

104

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

whose works praise male courage valor and passion as well as meditative withdrawal

We can in timate a long gone fairytale Arcadia appearing as if in a lucid dream but wi th shy

drawing back into its shrine as we try to hold on to it

T his dreamy component this state between life and death appears in Inodi fi ed form

in a sculpture that is dedicated to a historical figure albeit one shrouded in legend (pp

84-85) Over a rectangular base towers a pyramid of three tubular sections of different

sizes all enveloped in a thickJy flowing fissured layer of plaster The structure is rem inisshy

cent of ancien t temple complexes or French Revolu tion archi tecture Two paper inscripshy

tions pinned or respectively nailed to the base provide orientation Both mysteriously

allude to the mathematical dream of a certain Ashurbanipal who was king of Assyria

in the 7rh century BC and founded in Nineveh one of the n10st famous libraries of the

ancient world and revolut ionized among other d isciplines mathematics by subdividing

the ci rcle into 360 degrees The dream-become-reality resonates in the sculpture which

in its appearance recalls Mesopotamian stone edifices and reliefs

The large inscription LEX (which as in many of Twom blys works refers to

Lexington as the place of origin) inevitably brings to mind the Latin word for law an

association that lends the sculptures even greater weight

Comparable hybrid tower structures- fantastic architectural forms alternately recall

toys the Tower of Babel and the gigantism of conten1porary high-rises They are created

by layering parts that are as bereft of function as they are disparate an d that convey

through the white plaster (pp 53 57 63 75 77) or the patina of the bronze (pp 93

95) a deceptive image of stability and balance

From surprising combinations of banal everyday utensils a magic world emerges

seducing us into accepting as probable the most improbable An old crate with wooden

wheels a pa rt of a ladder and two paper flower blossoms attached to wire transform in to

a baby carriage or the thro ne of a fore ign culture (p 89) Wooden wheels boards and

burlap are sculp ted with the help of screws string and an allover coat of plaster into an

object of mysterious logic and intrinsic consequence that yet appears to us coherent and

impenetrable (p 45) Pieces of wood that have been used for stirring paint and look like

oars turn through this fragile mon tage into epitaphs of shipwreck (p 54) From a base

of imitation tuff reminiscent of a skull rises a small wood-and-wire construction that

bears a crown of alder leaves (pp 82- 83)

Vague memories of old rituals of myth ical sources surface yet cannot be pinned down

At the same time they carry a visi on of the potential for change of growth and spring

and of fem ininity T hese associations fi nd confi rmation in the llse of the alder leaves as

that tree is symbol of the uncanny of fi re and water earth feminin ity and growth

105

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

By contrast the thunderbolt of a mythical god has drilled its way into a plastershy

smeared plastic can Robbed of its former powers it is a mere copy of itself (p 81)

In one small monument resonates a melancholy sense of transience and vulnerability

innate in human intimacy and erotic attraction (pp 65-67) Two branches have been

tied together and placed on an altar-like structure They seem frozen in motion a mere

shadow of the comforting closeness now lost The inscription-clearly legible in grey its

shadow in blue-underlines this impression With a slash implying an equation Eros is

characterized as a binder and joiner Revealing are the semantic implications of these

terms connoting on the one hand the vocations of bookbinder and carpenter denoting

on the other the tying up coupling Thus Eros is designated a quite compulsive and yet

highly vulnerable ailing plant lacking the energy to stay alive

This erotic component becomes oppressive in a dangerously unstable sculpture that

has raised on a rough crate quite literally lost its balance (p 33) Like the sword of

Damocles (enveloped at the lower end in plaster and cord to form a phallus) a branch

dangles on a thin wire over the abyss Another a horizontal element used to hold the

others in place and negligently fastened by a nail hardly promises safety and in fact

underlines the threat to the entire structure the threat to masculinity as expressed in the

fear of castration

Tie-ups injuries only casually bandaged nails cords and wires repeatedly crop up in

these works They intensify the instability in many of the works and are crucial to their

ambivalence Gnarled branches mounted hastily on a board that is painted black in the

upper part are reminiscent of a hybrid human figure or a mandrake that resides in some

undefined interim realm (p 47) Three nails and wire connect part of a broomstick with

a board in such a way that it looks like a burning candle and yet has something exploshy

sive about it (pp 86-87) The small plaster shape on the reverse that dissolves into

impasto streaks and evokes a crucifixion the splashed traces of red paint resembling

blood and the monumental stability of the substructure all form an interplay of diverse

possible evolvements leaving open the outcome

This universal perception that creates harmony between all and everything that meanshy

ders playfully between ages and worlds that keeps everything in balance that lets the

remote seem close and vice versa finds a parallel in a principal idea of Classicism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe phrased it in exemplary manner in his interpretation of

the Laocoon group1 3 He explains the beauty of this sculpture as deriving from the

choice of the right moment I would readily say as the groupe is now exposed it is a

flash of lightening fixed a wave petrified at the instant when it is approaching the

106

shore 14 The ultimately hopeless battle against the death-bringing snakes so Goethes

dictum is here captured in those few seconds that hold the promise of an open end In

this Goethe sees the indispensable condition for the creation of great art because a

double grief unavailing efforts a situation which deprives him of all relief can only

excite horror and cannot even touch 15 Elsewhere he summarizes that the groupe

of Laocoon is a model of symmetry and of variety of repose and of motion of opposhy

sition and ofgradation which present themselves together to him who contemplates it in

a sensible or intellectual manner that these qualities notwithstanding the great pathetic

diffused over the representation excite an agreeable sensation and moderate the vioshy

lence of the passions and of the sufferings by grace and beauty 16

Although filtered by the gaze of contemporary artists and derived from a completely

changed repertoire of images and material Twomblys gaze nevertheless reflects this

stance With the greatest possible density and concentration his work mirrors that

balance of past and present rest and motion lack and plenty-not as factual reality but

as the outcome of experience that activates all senses and keeps them alert

107

NOTE S

I Barthes Roland N on multa sed mulcum in Lamberr

Yvon Catalogue raLsonne des ouvres sur papier de Cy Twombly

voL VI 1973-1979 (Milan 1979) pp 7-13 here p 13

2 In Tvvomblys work without the t (Tripolemos)

3 Alvaro de Campos Times Passage in Zenith Richard

(Ed) Fernando Pessoa 6- Co Selected Poems (New York

1999) pp 146 ff

4 Albeno Caeiro Hello Keeper of sheep in op ciL p 53

5 Joan Mir6 I work like a gardener reprinred in the exhibishy

tion catalogjoan Min Creator oNew Worlds (Srockholm

1998) based on (he translation by Margit Rowell Uoan

j1ir6 Selected writings and interviews [London 1987J)

pp 223-226 p 224 (the original French version flrst

appeared in Revue du XXe siecie no 1 1959)

6 The quote in Stendhal reads La beaute nest que la promesse

du bonheur in Stendhal De IAmour (Paris 1822)

Stend hals pseudonym refers to Stendal the binhplace of

Johann Joachim Vinckelmann-an uninrenrional but

nevertheless inreresting parallel if we consider Cy Twomblys

afflnity to Classicism

7 Lepanto 2001 12-pan cycle of painrings acrylic wax crayon

and graphite on canvas sized between 2108 and 2165 cm

(height) and 2877 and 3404 cm (width) Udo and Anette

Brandhorst Collection In 2002 the Lepanto painrings went

on show at Munichs Alte Pinakothek As of 2008 they will be

one of the highlights of the Brandhorst Museum Munich

8 Oral communication by the anist during a visit to his studio

in LexingtonVirginia in Fall 2004 where the Lepanto painrshy

ings like most of the sculpcures on display were made

9 See on this poinr the extensive discussion by Richard Leeman

in Leeman Richard Cy Twomb6 j1alen Zeichnen

Schreiben (Munich 2005) p 222

10 John Keats (1795-1821) Keats John Hyperion En Fragment

(Darmstadt 1948) cciition in English and German)

II John Herman Merivale Hymn to Venus 1833 in

Merivale John Herman Poems Original and translated

(New York 1978) reprinr of the London edition of 1838

12 A telling anecdote in passing Tiger is also the nickname of

one ofJvomblys assistanrs in Gaeta who has a quite unproshy

nounceable Romanian name

to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Observation on the Laocoon

in Goethe on Art Selected edited and translated by John Gage

(BerkeleyLos Angeles 1980) pp 78-88 First published in

Propylaen ErsLcn Bandes erstes StLick (Weimar 1789)

14 Ibid p 80 German in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Dber Laokoon in Schriften zur Kunst Parr One (Munich

12) pp 88-99 p 92 (Tch mochte sagen wie sie jerzr

dasteht ist sie ein flxierrer Blitz eine Welle versteinerr im

Au gcnblicke da sie gegen das Ufer ansrromt)

15 Ibid p 86 German in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Dber Laokoon in Schriften z ur Kunst Pan One (Munich

12) pp 88-99 p 98 (doppelter Schmerz eine vergebshy

liche Ansrrengung ein hulfloser Zustand ein gewisser Unrershy

gang konnen nur Abscheu erregen wenn sie nicht ganz kalt

lassen)

16 Ibid p 80 Ccrman in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Cher Laokoon in Schriften zur Kunst Parr One (Munich

12) pp 88-99 p 91 (daIS die Gruppe des Laokoon

ein Muster sei von ~ymmetrie und j1annigfoltigkeit von Ruhe

und Bewegung von Gegensazen und Stuftngdngen die sich

zusammen teils sinnlich tcils geistig dem Beschauer darbieshy

ten bei dem hohen Pathos der Vorstellung eine angenehme

Empflndung erregen und den Scurm der Leiden und Leidenshy

schaft durch Anmut und Schdnheit mildern)

109

I

JOURNEY TO LEXINGTON Reinhold Baumstar

Anyone traveling to Lexington today a small pictureque town in West

Virginia is usually heading for Washington and Lee University or Virginia

Military Institute two time-honored educational insti tutions of national

repute Yet one may also visit Lexington as one might Urbina Nuremberg

Pieve di Cadore Seville or Leiden as a place en nob led by art hismry It was in

Lexington that Cy Twombly was born on 25 April 1928 Hnc he spent his

outh received his first influential art lessons and here at only eighteen he

created his earliest known sculptures And though in the early 1950s the artist

looked to New York and though in 1952 on a trip with Robert Rau5chenberg

to Italy Spain and Morocco he explored Mediterranean culture-whose

enchanting appeal affected his entire artistic life-Lexington at first remained

an indispensable home base Even after Cy Twombly moved to Italy in 1957

he created a series of ten large almost monochrome white paintings in

Lexington on a brief trip LO the United States in 1959 In later years however

the trips to his hometown are more sporadic and the catalogue raisonne lists no

ther works made in Lexington

It was no t until late in Iife having developed ~trong artistic roots in Rome

Bassano and Gaeta and having found the pulse of a Mediterranean biography

thereby opening up m an understanding of European intellectual history and

eventually having traveled the former territories of emperors Cyrus and

Alexander (after whom he named his son) only after all th is did he make

his way back home In 1992 he bought a house in Lexington and since then

has spent several months of the year working in Virginia as well He rented an

empty warehouse where in 1994 he finished his largest canvas begun 22

years earlier in Rome (and initially tided ArZtltomy ofMelancholy as a reference

to Robert Burtons 1621 book) a canvas later to be retitled in Lexington as Say

Goodbye Catullus to the Shores o(Asia Minor With its size of four by sixteen

meters and with its wealrh of references to Canlllus Rilke Seferis

131

Archilochos Burton and Keats it is one of the ani ts most astoundi ng creashy

tions I n Lexington in the spring of 2001) Cy Twombly submitted to a yet

greater challenge by expanding hi monumental 12-part Lepanto serie - a

reflection on the hi tori cal victory of th fl et of the Holy League over the

Ottoman in 1571-tomake itapan ramaofh rror doom and death at ea

using a color palette hitherto unknown to his ceuvre By 1995 the now almost

seventy-year-old artist again took up the medium of sculpture in Lexington

the very place where he had cr ated his first These creations from his hand are

late works in the en e that they expre a ereniry and wisdom Unpubli hed

and with nlya mall selection having gone on public di play these work led

t the journeys undertaken by one passionate collect r one museum director

and one curator in the fall of 2004 and again by that collector and that mushy

seum direct r and a conservator in the spring of 2005 These were pilgrimages

to Virginia to Cy womblys Lexington

His studio in Lexington is rather inauspiciou As one tore among a r w Jt 1

located on a shopping uect in downtown Lexington The single-story buildshy

ing c n ists of just a medium- ized room and a small ne in the back The

facade is only a few meters wide and is divided between a slightly set back door

and a shop window Lowered blinds prevent glances inside There is no sign

no trademark no nameplate to rev al that in the midst of this small town busshy

tle there hides a celJ of creativity Pedestrians passing n the red briel sidewalk

will if at aU think of a temporarily closed store Fronl here it is but a brief

walk to the town m t important building and to Lexingtons greatest attracshy

tion the land cape surrounding it in a gentle embrace The hiUy Shenandoah

River Valley i framed to the East by the Blue Ridge Mountains and to the

We t by the still higher AppaIa hian Mountain Small settlements and om

red brick building with white wooden porches ar cattered across the fertile

farmland People have be n s ttling here for a long time and have witnessed

Arneri an hi tory in the making One of lhe building from the founding days

of the town is a wh itewa hed wooden tructure with Palladian double column

in the portico and a loggia on top-almost a fanners version of Palladios Villa

Cornaro Cy Twombly bought and briefly owned it (upon the ale f the

Lepanto eries) as if it were a declaration of love to his native Virginia He

speaks of her to his vi itors and take them t her ights to the Natural

Bridge one of the natural wonder f North America bought by homas

Jefferson in 1774 from King Gorge III to open it to the public to the

Jeffer n Pools in Warm Spring the oldest extant bathhou e in the United

tates dating back to the year 1761 and t the elegant Homestead resort in

Hot Springs where the ani ts fath r Edwin Park r Twombly used to play golf

History in Lexington al 0 blend with the per nal Cy Twombly was born in

the home of Gen ral Thomas Stonewall Jackson lhat had then been convertshy

ed into a ho pital and tOday houses the museum devoted to this legendary

Confederate hero of the American Civil War Military tradition and a rich his shy

tOrical pa t form the fa cinating and ndearing setcing for life in Lexington

All thi is left behind upon crossing the threshold [0 Cy Twombls tudio It is

hard to imagine that in this small room all twelve of the monumental Lepanto

paintings were made Due (0 a lack of space the artist could only worl on

four pictur s at a time and hung a new canvas in front of a barely dried canvas

as soon as one wa finished Drips of dry paint arc still vi ible on the tudio

floor and in their unusual color scale they make reference to a surpri ing work

roce s Th is cell-like workplace is all (he ill r remarkable when rhe visi[Or

134

considers that Cy Twombly had to conceive of Illonulllental cOmpOSitIOnS

had to calculate the dimensions of the room-filling series and had to anticipate

the effect on spectators that is now governed by distance and a panorama view

More miraculous stiJ] is how Twombly in this small room and with closed

blinds (and therefore a limited view of the outside) managed to infuse

Mediterranean light into this work how his gaze seems to have been branded

by the view of Gaeta Bay and the Tyrrhenian Sea The humble place of origin

of one of the central works in his auvre confirms that Cy Twombly s an

thrives on an internal vision on concentrating on understanding what he

makes visible to the minds eye a process from which grows the precision of

spontanei ty In the midst of the bustle of Lexington the artists studio main shy

rains an almost monastic character

Likewise the three visitors to the studio in the fall of 2004 were unable t

directly view the process of creation in a second group of works that Cy

Twombly had crafted in this room consisting of approxinutely thirty sculp shy

tures Yet here traces ofhis work were even more visible than the pain t drips of

the Lepanto series Squeezed into this room the sculptures (some on the floor

orne on boxes or crates serving as bases) stood there in a panorama of perplexshy

ing variety The entire studio seemed to be an extension of the principle

underlying his sculpture namely forming various objets trouves into new units

and coating them with a wash of plaster and white paint in such a manner that

trickles smears and clumps create a play of vibrant frozen motion of light

and shadow Sculptures and the brie a brae of manual labor pots of paint

tubes brushes drawing utensils and containers took on the shape of a comshy

position with objets trou-vls from an active artists life while all of this seemed t

be transcended by the egalitarian light falling through the white blinds The

anarchic freedom of the sculptures effect in the midst of the studios profusion

seemed a refreshing contrast to the rank and file of the young cadets from the

Virginia Milicary Institute who parade each week in historical uniform on the

fIeld next to their university wh iJe the echo of cannons and brass music

resounds in the artists studio Next to the window as if on the threshold to

the outside world the room reveals a magical space Here sits the master here

he hordes books and leuers here he welcomes visitors for a chat This is where

we conversed about his art won his approval and trust conferred on the plan

to bring (he precious and fragile works to the A]te Pinakothek in Munich

135

From here Cy Twomblys eye faJIs on the small seemingly disorderly yet forceshy

ful army of his sculptures as though from a secr t command po t

By contrast the artists private home is a personal realm rarely entered by

strangers The red brick building with white wooden porches c nforms to the

traditional architecture of the South Inside reign an order detectible only to

the ho t a variery of collectors items prints hunting trophies and books piled

into overflowing helves stacked on tables chairs and the Hoor In th mid t

of this trea ure trove for the ye and the mind the incredible beauty of some of

his wn sculptures ennobled by their pure whit and enigmatic appearance

call for the visit rs attention The 1992 work created on Jupiter Island (with

the isles sand n its base and crowned by two alder leaves) rises high with truly

fulkean elegance to sustain in lofty heights the barely felt weight of the leaves

wi th a tender gesture as it stand out from the surrounding flood of objects as

an expression of the will to form Beside it towers the most powerful of all

sculptures in Cy TWOlublys auvre On a squar base he has placed three drum

segments narrowing at the top and forming a severely pr portioned pyramid

Since ancient times this has been the mark of any monument and the artist

puts this consensus to use when in inscriptions he dedicates the work to the

memory of Assyrian king Assurbanipal (Sardanapal) who compiled in his

library at Nineveh the most important collection of Babylonian and Assyrian

literature Cy Twomblys erudition his penetrating of cultures his interest in

the empires of Cyrus and Alexander and moreover his knowledge and appro shy

priation of the poetics ofAncient times to our days that covers his auvre like a

closely knit imaginative net all this fuses into th is work to make it a mile shy

stone of his art In Cy Twonlblys home the monument recalling the memory

of a great bibliomaniac enters into a dialog with the stacks of books whence

the resident and artist draws his inspiration and knowledge finds the grai n

137

froHi which) nurtured by his spontaneity his an constantly re-germinates In

an exhibition such as that at the Alte Pinakothek Cy Twomblys sculptures

will without doubt reveal their innate beauty but [he secret of their genesis

their fertilization by an expansive mind remains concealed in the studio in

the anists library Only with this revelation did the journey to LexingtOn turn

into a pilgrimage to Virginia ro the roots of Cy Twomblys art

139

NOTE S

I Barthes Roland N on multa sed mulcum in Lamberr

Yvon Catalogue raLsonne des ouvres sur papier de Cy Twombly

voL VI 1973-1979 (Milan 1979) pp 7-13 here p 13

2 In Tvvomblys work without the t (Tripolemos)

3 Alvaro de Campos Times Passage in Zenith Richard

(Ed) Fernando Pessoa 6- Co Selected Poems (New York

1999) pp 146 ff

4 Albeno Caeiro Hello Keeper of sheep in op ciL p 53

5 Joan Mir6 I work like a gardener reprinred in the exhibishy

tion catalogjoan Min Creator oNew Worlds (Srockholm

1998) based on (he translation by Margit Rowell Uoan

j1ir6 Selected writings and interviews [London 1987J)

pp 223-226 p 224 (the original French version flrst

appeared in Revue du XXe siecie no 1 1959)

6 The quote in Stendhal reads La beaute nest que la promesse

du bonheur in Stendhal De IAmour (Paris 1822)

Stend hals pseudonym refers to Stendal the binhplace of

Johann Joachim Vinckelmann-an uninrenrional but

nevertheless inreresting parallel if we consider Cy Twomblys

afflnity to Classicism

7 Lepanto 2001 12-pan cycle of painrings acrylic wax crayon

and graphite on canvas sized between 2108 and 2165 cm

(height) and 2877 and 3404 cm (width) Udo and Anette

Brandhorst Collection In 2002 the Lepanto painrings went

on show at Munichs Alte Pinakothek As of 2008 they will be

one of the highlights of the Brandhorst Museum Munich

8 Oral communication by the anist during a visit to his studio

in LexingtonVirginia in Fall 2004 where the Lepanto painrshy

ings like most of the sculpcures on display were made

9 See on this poinr the extensive discussion by Richard Leeman

in Leeman Richard Cy Twomb6 j1alen Zeichnen

Schreiben (Munich 2005) p 222

10 John Keats (1795-1821) Keats John Hyperion En Fragment

(Darmstadt 1948) cciition in English and German)

II John Herman Merivale Hymn to Venus 1833 in

Merivale John Herman Poems Original and translated

(New York 1978) reprinr of the London edition of 1838

12 A telling anecdote in passing Tiger is also the nickname of

one ofJvomblys assistanrs in Gaeta who has a quite unproshy

nounceable Romanian name

to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Observation on the Laocoon

in Goethe on Art Selected edited and translated by John Gage

(BerkeleyLos Angeles 1980) pp 78-88 First published in

Propylaen ErsLcn Bandes erstes StLick (Weimar 1789)

14 Ibid p 80 German in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Dber Laokoon in Schriften zur Kunst Parr One (Munich

12) pp 88-99 p 92 (Tch mochte sagen wie sie jerzr

dasteht ist sie ein flxierrer Blitz eine Welle versteinerr im

Au gcnblicke da sie gegen das Ufer ansrromt)

15 Ibid p 86 German in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Dber Laokoon in Schriften z ur Kunst Pan One (Munich

12) pp 88-99 p 98 (doppelter Schmerz eine vergebshy

liche Ansrrengung ein hulfloser Zustand ein gewisser Unrershy

gang konnen nur Abscheu erregen wenn sie nicht ganz kalt

lassen)

16 Ibid p 80 Ccrman in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Cher Laokoon in Schriften zur Kunst Parr One (Munich

12) pp 88-99 p 91 (daIS die Gruppe des Laokoon

ein Muster sei von ~ymmetrie und j1annigfoltigkeit von Ruhe

und Bewegung von Gegensazen und Stuftngdngen die sich

zusammen teils sinnlich tcils geistig dem Beschauer darbieshy

ten bei dem hohen Pathos der Vorstellung eine angenehme

Empflndung erregen und den Scurm der Leiden und Leidenshy

schaft durch Anmut und Schdnheit mildern)

109

I

JOURNEY TO LEXINGTON Reinhold Baumstar

Anyone traveling to Lexington today a small pictureque town in West

Virginia is usually heading for Washington and Lee University or Virginia

Military Institute two time-honored educational insti tutions of national

repute Yet one may also visit Lexington as one might Urbina Nuremberg

Pieve di Cadore Seville or Leiden as a place en nob led by art hismry It was in

Lexington that Cy Twombly was born on 25 April 1928 Hnc he spent his

outh received his first influential art lessons and here at only eighteen he

created his earliest known sculptures And though in the early 1950s the artist

looked to New York and though in 1952 on a trip with Robert Rau5chenberg

to Italy Spain and Morocco he explored Mediterranean culture-whose

enchanting appeal affected his entire artistic life-Lexington at first remained

an indispensable home base Even after Cy Twombly moved to Italy in 1957

he created a series of ten large almost monochrome white paintings in

Lexington on a brief trip LO the United States in 1959 In later years however

the trips to his hometown are more sporadic and the catalogue raisonne lists no

ther works made in Lexington

It was no t until late in Iife having developed ~trong artistic roots in Rome

Bassano and Gaeta and having found the pulse of a Mediterranean biography

thereby opening up m an understanding of European intellectual history and

eventually having traveled the former territories of emperors Cyrus and

Alexander (after whom he named his son) only after all th is did he make

his way back home In 1992 he bought a house in Lexington and since then

has spent several months of the year working in Virginia as well He rented an

empty warehouse where in 1994 he finished his largest canvas begun 22

years earlier in Rome (and initially tided ArZtltomy ofMelancholy as a reference

to Robert Burtons 1621 book) a canvas later to be retitled in Lexington as Say

Goodbye Catullus to the Shores o(Asia Minor With its size of four by sixteen

meters and with its wealrh of references to Canlllus Rilke Seferis

131

Archilochos Burton and Keats it is one of the ani ts most astoundi ng creashy

tions I n Lexington in the spring of 2001) Cy Twombly submitted to a yet

greater challenge by expanding hi monumental 12-part Lepanto serie - a

reflection on the hi tori cal victory of th fl et of the Holy League over the

Ottoman in 1571-tomake itapan ramaofh rror doom and death at ea

using a color palette hitherto unknown to his ceuvre By 1995 the now almost

seventy-year-old artist again took up the medium of sculpture in Lexington

the very place where he had cr ated his first These creations from his hand are

late works in the en e that they expre a ereniry and wisdom Unpubli hed

and with nlya mall selection having gone on public di play these work led

t the journeys undertaken by one passionate collect r one museum director

and one curator in the fall of 2004 and again by that collector and that mushy

seum direct r and a conservator in the spring of 2005 These were pilgrimages

to Virginia to Cy womblys Lexington

His studio in Lexington is rather inauspiciou As one tore among a r w Jt 1

located on a shopping uect in downtown Lexington The single-story buildshy

ing c n ists of just a medium- ized room and a small ne in the back The

facade is only a few meters wide and is divided between a slightly set back door

and a shop window Lowered blinds prevent glances inside There is no sign

no trademark no nameplate to rev al that in the midst of this small town busshy

tle there hides a celJ of creativity Pedestrians passing n the red briel sidewalk

will if at aU think of a temporarily closed store Fronl here it is but a brief

walk to the town m t important building and to Lexingtons greatest attracshy

tion the land cape surrounding it in a gentle embrace The hiUy Shenandoah

River Valley i framed to the East by the Blue Ridge Mountains and to the

We t by the still higher AppaIa hian Mountain Small settlements and om

red brick building with white wooden porches ar cattered across the fertile

farmland People have be n s ttling here for a long time and have witnessed

Arneri an hi tory in the making One of lhe building from the founding days

of the town is a wh itewa hed wooden tructure with Palladian double column

in the portico and a loggia on top-almost a fanners version of Palladios Villa

Cornaro Cy Twombly bought and briefly owned it (upon the ale f the

Lepanto eries) as if it were a declaration of love to his native Virginia He

speaks of her to his vi itors and take them t her ights to the Natural

Bridge one of the natural wonder f North America bought by homas

Jefferson in 1774 from King Gorge III to open it to the public to the

Jeffer n Pools in Warm Spring the oldest extant bathhou e in the United

tates dating back to the year 1761 and t the elegant Homestead resort in

Hot Springs where the ani ts fath r Edwin Park r Twombly used to play golf

History in Lexington al 0 blend with the per nal Cy Twombly was born in

the home of Gen ral Thomas Stonewall Jackson lhat had then been convertshy

ed into a ho pital and tOday houses the museum devoted to this legendary

Confederate hero of the American Civil War Military tradition and a rich his shy

tOrical pa t form the fa cinating and ndearing setcing for life in Lexington

All thi is left behind upon crossing the threshold [0 Cy Twombls tudio It is

hard to imagine that in this small room all twelve of the monumental Lepanto

paintings were made Due (0 a lack of space the artist could only worl on

four pictur s at a time and hung a new canvas in front of a barely dried canvas

as soon as one wa finished Drips of dry paint arc still vi ible on the tudio

floor and in their unusual color scale they make reference to a surpri ing work

roce s Th is cell-like workplace is all (he ill r remarkable when rhe visi[Or

134

considers that Cy Twombly had to conceive of Illonulllental cOmpOSitIOnS

had to calculate the dimensions of the room-filling series and had to anticipate

the effect on spectators that is now governed by distance and a panorama view

More miraculous stiJ] is how Twombly in this small room and with closed

blinds (and therefore a limited view of the outside) managed to infuse

Mediterranean light into this work how his gaze seems to have been branded

by the view of Gaeta Bay and the Tyrrhenian Sea The humble place of origin

of one of the central works in his auvre confirms that Cy Twombly s an

thrives on an internal vision on concentrating on understanding what he

makes visible to the minds eye a process from which grows the precision of

spontanei ty In the midst of the bustle of Lexington the artists studio main shy

rains an almost monastic character

Likewise the three visitors to the studio in the fall of 2004 were unable t

directly view the process of creation in a second group of works that Cy

Twombly had crafted in this room consisting of approxinutely thirty sculp shy

tures Yet here traces ofhis work were even more visible than the pain t drips of

the Lepanto series Squeezed into this room the sculptures (some on the floor

orne on boxes or crates serving as bases) stood there in a panorama of perplexshy

ing variety The entire studio seemed to be an extension of the principle

underlying his sculpture namely forming various objets trouves into new units

and coating them with a wash of plaster and white paint in such a manner that

trickles smears and clumps create a play of vibrant frozen motion of light

and shadow Sculptures and the brie a brae of manual labor pots of paint

tubes brushes drawing utensils and containers took on the shape of a comshy

position with objets trou-vls from an active artists life while all of this seemed t

be transcended by the egalitarian light falling through the white blinds The

anarchic freedom of the sculptures effect in the midst of the studios profusion

seemed a refreshing contrast to the rank and file of the young cadets from the

Virginia Milicary Institute who parade each week in historical uniform on the

fIeld next to their university wh iJe the echo of cannons and brass music

resounds in the artists studio Next to the window as if on the threshold to

the outside world the room reveals a magical space Here sits the master here

he hordes books and leuers here he welcomes visitors for a chat This is where

we conversed about his art won his approval and trust conferred on the plan

to bring (he precious and fragile works to the A]te Pinakothek in Munich

135

From here Cy Twomblys eye faJIs on the small seemingly disorderly yet forceshy

ful army of his sculptures as though from a secr t command po t

By contrast the artists private home is a personal realm rarely entered by

strangers The red brick building with white wooden porches c nforms to the

traditional architecture of the South Inside reign an order detectible only to

the ho t a variery of collectors items prints hunting trophies and books piled

into overflowing helves stacked on tables chairs and the Hoor In th mid t

of this trea ure trove for the ye and the mind the incredible beauty of some of

his wn sculptures ennobled by their pure whit and enigmatic appearance

call for the visit rs attention The 1992 work created on Jupiter Island (with

the isles sand n its base and crowned by two alder leaves) rises high with truly

fulkean elegance to sustain in lofty heights the barely felt weight of the leaves

wi th a tender gesture as it stand out from the surrounding flood of objects as

an expression of the will to form Beside it towers the most powerful of all

sculptures in Cy TWOlublys auvre On a squar base he has placed three drum

segments narrowing at the top and forming a severely pr portioned pyramid

Since ancient times this has been the mark of any monument and the artist

puts this consensus to use when in inscriptions he dedicates the work to the

memory of Assyrian king Assurbanipal (Sardanapal) who compiled in his

library at Nineveh the most important collection of Babylonian and Assyrian

literature Cy Twomblys erudition his penetrating of cultures his interest in

the empires of Cyrus and Alexander and moreover his knowledge and appro shy

priation of the poetics ofAncient times to our days that covers his auvre like a

closely knit imaginative net all this fuses into th is work to make it a mile shy

stone of his art In Cy Twonlblys home the monument recalling the memory

of a great bibliomaniac enters into a dialog with the stacks of books whence

the resident and artist draws his inspiration and knowledge finds the grai n

137

froHi which) nurtured by his spontaneity his an constantly re-germinates In

an exhibition such as that at the Alte Pinakothek Cy Twomblys sculptures

will without doubt reveal their innate beauty but [he secret of their genesis

their fertilization by an expansive mind remains concealed in the studio in

the anists library Only with this revelation did the journey to LexingtOn turn

into a pilgrimage to Virginia ro the roots of Cy Twomblys art

139

JOURNEY TO LEXINGTON Reinhold Baumstar

Anyone traveling to Lexington today a small pictureque town in West

Virginia is usually heading for Washington and Lee University or Virginia

Military Institute two time-honored educational insti tutions of national

repute Yet one may also visit Lexington as one might Urbina Nuremberg

Pieve di Cadore Seville or Leiden as a place en nob led by art hismry It was in

Lexington that Cy Twombly was born on 25 April 1928 Hnc he spent his

outh received his first influential art lessons and here at only eighteen he

created his earliest known sculptures And though in the early 1950s the artist

looked to New York and though in 1952 on a trip with Robert Rau5chenberg

to Italy Spain and Morocco he explored Mediterranean culture-whose

enchanting appeal affected his entire artistic life-Lexington at first remained

an indispensable home base Even after Cy Twombly moved to Italy in 1957

he created a series of ten large almost monochrome white paintings in

Lexington on a brief trip LO the United States in 1959 In later years however

the trips to his hometown are more sporadic and the catalogue raisonne lists no

ther works made in Lexington

It was no t until late in Iife having developed ~trong artistic roots in Rome

Bassano and Gaeta and having found the pulse of a Mediterranean biography

thereby opening up m an understanding of European intellectual history and

eventually having traveled the former territories of emperors Cyrus and

Alexander (after whom he named his son) only after all th is did he make

his way back home In 1992 he bought a house in Lexington and since then

has spent several months of the year working in Virginia as well He rented an

empty warehouse where in 1994 he finished his largest canvas begun 22

years earlier in Rome (and initially tided ArZtltomy ofMelancholy as a reference

to Robert Burtons 1621 book) a canvas later to be retitled in Lexington as Say

Goodbye Catullus to the Shores o(Asia Minor With its size of four by sixteen

meters and with its wealrh of references to Canlllus Rilke Seferis

131

Archilochos Burton and Keats it is one of the ani ts most astoundi ng creashy

tions I n Lexington in the spring of 2001) Cy Twombly submitted to a yet

greater challenge by expanding hi monumental 12-part Lepanto serie - a

reflection on the hi tori cal victory of th fl et of the Holy League over the

Ottoman in 1571-tomake itapan ramaofh rror doom and death at ea

using a color palette hitherto unknown to his ceuvre By 1995 the now almost

seventy-year-old artist again took up the medium of sculpture in Lexington

the very place where he had cr ated his first These creations from his hand are

late works in the en e that they expre a ereniry and wisdom Unpubli hed

and with nlya mall selection having gone on public di play these work led

t the journeys undertaken by one passionate collect r one museum director

and one curator in the fall of 2004 and again by that collector and that mushy

seum direct r and a conservator in the spring of 2005 These were pilgrimages

to Virginia to Cy womblys Lexington

His studio in Lexington is rather inauspiciou As one tore among a r w Jt 1

located on a shopping uect in downtown Lexington The single-story buildshy

ing c n ists of just a medium- ized room and a small ne in the back The

facade is only a few meters wide and is divided between a slightly set back door

and a shop window Lowered blinds prevent glances inside There is no sign

no trademark no nameplate to rev al that in the midst of this small town busshy

tle there hides a celJ of creativity Pedestrians passing n the red briel sidewalk

will if at aU think of a temporarily closed store Fronl here it is but a brief

walk to the town m t important building and to Lexingtons greatest attracshy

tion the land cape surrounding it in a gentle embrace The hiUy Shenandoah

River Valley i framed to the East by the Blue Ridge Mountains and to the

We t by the still higher AppaIa hian Mountain Small settlements and om

red brick building with white wooden porches ar cattered across the fertile

farmland People have be n s ttling here for a long time and have witnessed

Arneri an hi tory in the making One of lhe building from the founding days

of the town is a wh itewa hed wooden tructure with Palladian double column

in the portico and a loggia on top-almost a fanners version of Palladios Villa

Cornaro Cy Twombly bought and briefly owned it (upon the ale f the

Lepanto eries) as if it were a declaration of love to his native Virginia He

speaks of her to his vi itors and take them t her ights to the Natural

Bridge one of the natural wonder f North America bought by homas

Jefferson in 1774 from King Gorge III to open it to the public to the

Jeffer n Pools in Warm Spring the oldest extant bathhou e in the United

tates dating back to the year 1761 and t the elegant Homestead resort in

Hot Springs where the ani ts fath r Edwin Park r Twombly used to play golf

History in Lexington al 0 blend with the per nal Cy Twombly was born in

the home of Gen ral Thomas Stonewall Jackson lhat had then been convertshy

ed into a ho pital and tOday houses the museum devoted to this legendary

Confederate hero of the American Civil War Military tradition and a rich his shy

tOrical pa t form the fa cinating and ndearing setcing for life in Lexington

All thi is left behind upon crossing the threshold [0 Cy Twombls tudio It is

hard to imagine that in this small room all twelve of the monumental Lepanto

paintings were made Due (0 a lack of space the artist could only worl on

four pictur s at a time and hung a new canvas in front of a barely dried canvas

as soon as one wa finished Drips of dry paint arc still vi ible on the tudio

floor and in their unusual color scale they make reference to a surpri ing work

roce s Th is cell-like workplace is all (he ill r remarkable when rhe visi[Or

134

considers that Cy Twombly had to conceive of Illonulllental cOmpOSitIOnS

had to calculate the dimensions of the room-filling series and had to anticipate

the effect on spectators that is now governed by distance and a panorama view

More miraculous stiJ] is how Twombly in this small room and with closed

blinds (and therefore a limited view of the outside) managed to infuse

Mediterranean light into this work how his gaze seems to have been branded

by the view of Gaeta Bay and the Tyrrhenian Sea The humble place of origin

of one of the central works in his auvre confirms that Cy Twombly s an

thrives on an internal vision on concentrating on understanding what he

makes visible to the minds eye a process from which grows the precision of

spontanei ty In the midst of the bustle of Lexington the artists studio main shy

rains an almost monastic character

Likewise the three visitors to the studio in the fall of 2004 were unable t

directly view the process of creation in a second group of works that Cy

Twombly had crafted in this room consisting of approxinutely thirty sculp shy

tures Yet here traces ofhis work were even more visible than the pain t drips of

the Lepanto series Squeezed into this room the sculptures (some on the floor

orne on boxes or crates serving as bases) stood there in a panorama of perplexshy

ing variety The entire studio seemed to be an extension of the principle

underlying his sculpture namely forming various objets trouves into new units

and coating them with a wash of plaster and white paint in such a manner that

trickles smears and clumps create a play of vibrant frozen motion of light

and shadow Sculptures and the brie a brae of manual labor pots of paint

tubes brushes drawing utensils and containers took on the shape of a comshy

position with objets trou-vls from an active artists life while all of this seemed t

be transcended by the egalitarian light falling through the white blinds The

anarchic freedom of the sculptures effect in the midst of the studios profusion

seemed a refreshing contrast to the rank and file of the young cadets from the

Virginia Milicary Institute who parade each week in historical uniform on the

fIeld next to their university wh iJe the echo of cannons and brass music

resounds in the artists studio Next to the window as if on the threshold to

the outside world the room reveals a magical space Here sits the master here

he hordes books and leuers here he welcomes visitors for a chat This is where

we conversed about his art won his approval and trust conferred on the plan

to bring (he precious and fragile works to the A]te Pinakothek in Munich

135

From here Cy Twomblys eye faJIs on the small seemingly disorderly yet forceshy

ful army of his sculptures as though from a secr t command po t

By contrast the artists private home is a personal realm rarely entered by

strangers The red brick building with white wooden porches c nforms to the

traditional architecture of the South Inside reign an order detectible only to

the ho t a variery of collectors items prints hunting trophies and books piled

into overflowing helves stacked on tables chairs and the Hoor In th mid t

of this trea ure trove for the ye and the mind the incredible beauty of some of

his wn sculptures ennobled by their pure whit and enigmatic appearance

call for the visit rs attention The 1992 work created on Jupiter Island (with

the isles sand n its base and crowned by two alder leaves) rises high with truly

fulkean elegance to sustain in lofty heights the barely felt weight of the leaves

wi th a tender gesture as it stand out from the surrounding flood of objects as

an expression of the will to form Beside it towers the most powerful of all

sculptures in Cy TWOlublys auvre On a squar base he has placed three drum

segments narrowing at the top and forming a severely pr portioned pyramid

Since ancient times this has been the mark of any monument and the artist

puts this consensus to use when in inscriptions he dedicates the work to the

memory of Assyrian king Assurbanipal (Sardanapal) who compiled in his

library at Nineveh the most important collection of Babylonian and Assyrian

literature Cy Twomblys erudition his penetrating of cultures his interest in

the empires of Cyrus and Alexander and moreover his knowledge and appro shy

priation of the poetics ofAncient times to our days that covers his auvre like a

closely knit imaginative net all this fuses into th is work to make it a mile shy

stone of his art In Cy Twonlblys home the monument recalling the memory

of a great bibliomaniac enters into a dialog with the stacks of books whence

the resident and artist draws his inspiration and knowledge finds the grai n

137

froHi which) nurtured by his spontaneity his an constantly re-germinates In

an exhibition such as that at the Alte Pinakothek Cy Twomblys sculptures

will without doubt reveal their innate beauty but [he secret of their genesis

their fertilization by an expansive mind remains concealed in the studio in

the anists library Only with this revelation did the journey to LexingtOn turn

into a pilgrimage to Virginia ro the roots of Cy Twomblys art

139

Archilochos Burton and Keats it is one of the ani ts most astoundi ng creashy

tions I n Lexington in the spring of 2001) Cy Twombly submitted to a yet

greater challenge by expanding hi monumental 12-part Lepanto serie - a

reflection on the hi tori cal victory of th fl et of the Holy League over the

Ottoman in 1571-tomake itapan ramaofh rror doom and death at ea

using a color palette hitherto unknown to his ceuvre By 1995 the now almost

seventy-year-old artist again took up the medium of sculpture in Lexington

the very place where he had cr ated his first These creations from his hand are

late works in the en e that they expre a ereniry and wisdom Unpubli hed

and with nlya mall selection having gone on public di play these work led

t the journeys undertaken by one passionate collect r one museum director

and one curator in the fall of 2004 and again by that collector and that mushy

seum direct r and a conservator in the spring of 2005 These were pilgrimages

to Virginia to Cy womblys Lexington

His studio in Lexington is rather inauspiciou As one tore among a r w Jt 1

located on a shopping uect in downtown Lexington The single-story buildshy

ing c n ists of just a medium- ized room and a small ne in the back The

facade is only a few meters wide and is divided between a slightly set back door

and a shop window Lowered blinds prevent glances inside There is no sign

no trademark no nameplate to rev al that in the midst of this small town busshy

tle there hides a celJ of creativity Pedestrians passing n the red briel sidewalk

will if at aU think of a temporarily closed store Fronl here it is but a brief

walk to the town m t important building and to Lexingtons greatest attracshy

tion the land cape surrounding it in a gentle embrace The hiUy Shenandoah

River Valley i framed to the East by the Blue Ridge Mountains and to the

We t by the still higher AppaIa hian Mountain Small settlements and om

red brick building with white wooden porches ar cattered across the fertile

farmland People have be n s ttling here for a long time and have witnessed

Arneri an hi tory in the making One of lhe building from the founding days

of the town is a wh itewa hed wooden tructure with Palladian double column

in the portico and a loggia on top-almost a fanners version of Palladios Villa

Cornaro Cy Twombly bought and briefly owned it (upon the ale f the

Lepanto eries) as if it were a declaration of love to his native Virginia He

speaks of her to his vi itors and take them t her ights to the Natural

Bridge one of the natural wonder f North America bought by homas

Jefferson in 1774 from King Gorge III to open it to the public to the

Jeffer n Pools in Warm Spring the oldest extant bathhou e in the United

tates dating back to the year 1761 and t the elegant Homestead resort in

Hot Springs where the ani ts fath r Edwin Park r Twombly used to play golf

History in Lexington al 0 blend with the per nal Cy Twombly was born in

the home of Gen ral Thomas Stonewall Jackson lhat had then been convertshy

ed into a ho pital and tOday houses the museum devoted to this legendary

Confederate hero of the American Civil War Military tradition and a rich his shy

tOrical pa t form the fa cinating and ndearing setcing for life in Lexington

All thi is left behind upon crossing the threshold [0 Cy Twombls tudio It is

hard to imagine that in this small room all twelve of the monumental Lepanto

paintings were made Due (0 a lack of space the artist could only worl on

four pictur s at a time and hung a new canvas in front of a barely dried canvas

as soon as one wa finished Drips of dry paint arc still vi ible on the tudio

floor and in their unusual color scale they make reference to a surpri ing work

roce s Th is cell-like workplace is all (he ill r remarkable when rhe visi[Or

134

considers that Cy Twombly had to conceive of Illonulllental cOmpOSitIOnS

had to calculate the dimensions of the room-filling series and had to anticipate

the effect on spectators that is now governed by distance and a panorama view

More miraculous stiJ] is how Twombly in this small room and with closed

blinds (and therefore a limited view of the outside) managed to infuse

Mediterranean light into this work how his gaze seems to have been branded

by the view of Gaeta Bay and the Tyrrhenian Sea The humble place of origin

of one of the central works in his auvre confirms that Cy Twombly s an

thrives on an internal vision on concentrating on understanding what he

makes visible to the minds eye a process from which grows the precision of

spontanei ty In the midst of the bustle of Lexington the artists studio main shy

rains an almost monastic character

Likewise the three visitors to the studio in the fall of 2004 were unable t

directly view the process of creation in a second group of works that Cy

Twombly had crafted in this room consisting of approxinutely thirty sculp shy

tures Yet here traces ofhis work were even more visible than the pain t drips of

the Lepanto series Squeezed into this room the sculptures (some on the floor

orne on boxes or crates serving as bases) stood there in a panorama of perplexshy

ing variety The entire studio seemed to be an extension of the principle

underlying his sculpture namely forming various objets trouves into new units

and coating them with a wash of plaster and white paint in such a manner that

trickles smears and clumps create a play of vibrant frozen motion of light

and shadow Sculptures and the brie a brae of manual labor pots of paint

tubes brushes drawing utensils and containers took on the shape of a comshy

position with objets trou-vls from an active artists life while all of this seemed t

be transcended by the egalitarian light falling through the white blinds The

anarchic freedom of the sculptures effect in the midst of the studios profusion

seemed a refreshing contrast to the rank and file of the young cadets from the

Virginia Milicary Institute who parade each week in historical uniform on the

fIeld next to their university wh iJe the echo of cannons and brass music

resounds in the artists studio Next to the window as if on the threshold to

the outside world the room reveals a magical space Here sits the master here

he hordes books and leuers here he welcomes visitors for a chat This is where

we conversed about his art won his approval and trust conferred on the plan

to bring (he precious and fragile works to the A]te Pinakothek in Munich

135

From here Cy Twomblys eye faJIs on the small seemingly disorderly yet forceshy

ful army of his sculptures as though from a secr t command po t

By contrast the artists private home is a personal realm rarely entered by

strangers The red brick building with white wooden porches c nforms to the

traditional architecture of the South Inside reign an order detectible only to

the ho t a variery of collectors items prints hunting trophies and books piled

into overflowing helves stacked on tables chairs and the Hoor In th mid t

of this trea ure trove for the ye and the mind the incredible beauty of some of

his wn sculptures ennobled by their pure whit and enigmatic appearance

call for the visit rs attention The 1992 work created on Jupiter Island (with

the isles sand n its base and crowned by two alder leaves) rises high with truly

fulkean elegance to sustain in lofty heights the barely felt weight of the leaves

wi th a tender gesture as it stand out from the surrounding flood of objects as

an expression of the will to form Beside it towers the most powerful of all

sculptures in Cy TWOlublys auvre On a squar base he has placed three drum

segments narrowing at the top and forming a severely pr portioned pyramid

Since ancient times this has been the mark of any monument and the artist

puts this consensus to use when in inscriptions he dedicates the work to the

memory of Assyrian king Assurbanipal (Sardanapal) who compiled in his

library at Nineveh the most important collection of Babylonian and Assyrian

literature Cy Twomblys erudition his penetrating of cultures his interest in

the empires of Cyrus and Alexander and moreover his knowledge and appro shy

priation of the poetics ofAncient times to our days that covers his auvre like a

closely knit imaginative net all this fuses into th is work to make it a mile shy

stone of his art In Cy Twonlblys home the monument recalling the memory

of a great bibliomaniac enters into a dialog with the stacks of books whence

the resident and artist draws his inspiration and knowledge finds the grai n

137

froHi which) nurtured by his spontaneity his an constantly re-germinates In

an exhibition such as that at the Alte Pinakothek Cy Twomblys sculptures

will without doubt reveal their innate beauty but [he secret of their genesis

their fertilization by an expansive mind remains concealed in the studio in

the anists library Only with this revelation did the journey to LexingtOn turn

into a pilgrimage to Virginia ro the roots of Cy Twomblys art

139

Jefferson in 1774 from King Gorge III to open it to the public to the

Jeffer n Pools in Warm Spring the oldest extant bathhou e in the United

tates dating back to the year 1761 and t the elegant Homestead resort in

Hot Springs where the ani ts fath r Edwin Park r Twombly used to play golf

History in Lexington al 0 blend with the per nal Cy Twombly was born in

the home of Gen ral Thomas Stonewall Jackson lhat had then been convertshy

ed into a ho pital and tOday houses the museum devoted to this legendary

Confederate hero of the American Civil War Military tradition and a rich his shy

tOrical pa t form the fa cinating and ndearing setcing for life in Lexington

All thi is left behind upon crossing the threshold [0 Cy Twombls tudio It is

hard to imagine that in this small room all twelve of the monumental Lepanto

paintings were made Due (0 a lack of space the artist could only worl on

four pictur s at a time and hung a new canvas in front of a barely dried canvas

as soon as one wa finished Drips of dry paint arc still vi ible on the tudio

floor and in their unusual color scale they make reference to a surpri ing work

roce s Th is cell-like workplace is all (he ill r remarkable when rhe visi[Or

134

considers that Cy Twombly had to conceive of Illonulllental cOmpOSitIOnS

had to calculate the dimensions of the room-filling series and had to anticipate

the effect on spectators that is now governed by distance and a panorama view

More miraculous stiJ] is how Twombly in this small room and with closed

blinds (and therefore a limited view of the outside) managed to infuse

Mediterranean light into this work how his gaze seems to have been branded

by the view of Gaeta Bay and the Tyrrhenian Sea The humble place of origin

of one of the central works in his auvre confirms that Cy Twombly s an

thrives on an internal vision on concentrating on understanding what he

makes visible to the minds eye a process from which grows the precision of

spontanei ty In the midst of the bustle of Lexington the artists studio main shy

rains an almost monastic character

Likewise the three visitors to the studio in the fall of 2004 were unable t

directly view the process of creation in a second group of works that Cy

Twombly had crafted in this room consisting of approxinutely thirty sculp shy

tures Yet here traces ofhis work were even more visible than the pain t drips of

the Lepanto series Squeezed into this room the sculptures (some on the floor

orne on boxes or crates serving as bases) stood there in a panorama of perplexshy

ing variety The entire studio seemed to be an extension of the principle

underlying his sculpture namely forming various objets trouves into new units

and coating them with a wash of plaster and white paint in such a manner that

trickles smears and clumps create a play of vibrant frozen motion of light

and shadow Sculptures and the brie a brae of manual labor pots of paint

tubes brushes drawing utensils and containers took on the shape of a comshy

position with objets trou-vls from an active artists life while all of this seemed t

be transcended by the egalitarian light falling through the white blinds The

anarchic freedom of the sculptures effect in the midst of the studios profusion

seemed a refreshing contrast to the rank and file of the young cadets from the

Virginia Milicary Institute who parade each week in historical uniform on the

fIeld next to their university wh iJe the echo of cannons and brass music

resounds in the artists studio Next to the window as if on the threshold to

the outside world the room reveals a magical space Here sits the master here

he hordes books and leuers here he welcomes visitors for a chat This is where

we conversed about his art won his approval and trust conferred on the plan

to bring (he precious and fragile works to the A]te Pinakothek in Munich

135

From here Cy Twomblys eye faJIs on the small seemingly disorderly yet forceshy

ful army of his sculptures as though from a secr t command po t

By contrast the artists private home is a personal realm rarely entered by

strangers The red brick building with white wooden porches c nforms to the

traditional architecture of the South Inside reign an order detectible only to

the ho t a variery of collectors items prints hunting trophies and books piled

into overflowing helves stacked on tables chairs and the Hoor In th mid t

of this trea ure trove for the ye and the mind the incredible beauty of some of

his wn sculptures ennobled by their pure whit and enigmatic appearance

call for the visit rs attention The 1992 work created on Jupiter Island (with

the isles sand n its base and crowned by two alder leaves) rises high with truly

fulkean elegance to sustain in lofty heights the barely felt weight of the leaves

wi th a tender gesture as it stand out from the surrounding flood of objects as

an expression of the will to form Beside it towers the most powerful of all

sculptures in Cy TWOlublys auvre On a squar base he has placed three drum

segments narrowing at the top and forming a severely pr portioned pyramid

Since ancient times this has been the mark of any monument and the artist

puts this consensus to use when in inscriptions he dedicates the work to the

memory of Assyrian king Assurbanipal (Sardanapal) who compiled in his

library at Nineveh the most important collection of Babylonian and Assyrian

literature Cy Twomblys erudition his penetrating of cultures his interest in

the empires of Cyrus and Alexander and moreover his knowledge and appro shy

priation of the poetics ofAncient times to our days that covers his auvre like a

closely knit imaginative net all this fuses into th is work to make it a mile shy

stone of his art In Cy Twonlblys home the monument recalling the memory

of a great bibliomaniac enters into a dialog with the stacks of books whence

the resident and artist draws his inspiration and knowledge finds the grai n

137

froHi which) nurtured by his spontaneity his an constantly re-germinates In

an exhibition such as that at the Alte Pinakothek Cy Twomblys sculptures

will without doubt reveal their innate beauty but [he secret of their genesis

their fertilization by an expansive mind remains concealed in the studio in

the anists library Only with this revelation did the journey to LexingtOn turn

into a pilgrimage to Virginia ro the roots of Cy Twomblys art

139

considers that Cy Twombly had to conceive of Illonulllental cOmpOSitIOnS

had to calculate the dimensions of the room-filling series and had to anticipate

the effect on spectators that is now governed by distance and a panorama view

More miraculous stiJ] is how Twombly in this small room and with closed

blinds (and therefore a limited view of the outside) managed to infuse

Mediterranean light into this work how his gaze seems to have been branded

by the view of Gaeta Bay and the Tyrrhenian Sea The humble place of origin

of one of the central works in his auvre confirms that Cy Twombly s an

thrives on an internal vision on concentrating on understanding what he

makes visible to the minds eye a process from which grows the precision of

spontanei ty In the midst of the bustle of Lexington the artists studio main shy

rains an almost monastic character

Likewise the three visitors to the studio in the fall of 2004 were unable t

directly view the process of creation in a second group of works that Cy

Twombly had crafted in this room consisting of approxinutely thirty sculp shy

tures Yet here traces ofhis work were even more visible than the pain t drips of

the Lepanto series Squeezed into this room the sculptures (some on the floor

orne on boxes or crates serving as bases) stood there in a panorama of perplexshy

ing variety The entire studio seemed to be an extension of the principle

underlying his sculpture namely forming various objets trouves into new units

and coating them with a wash of plaster and white paint in such a manner that

trickles smears and clumps create a play of vibrant frozen motion of light

and shadow Sculptures and the brie a brae of manual labor pots of paint

tubes brushes drawing utensils and containers took on the shape of a comshy

position with objets trou-vls from an active artists life while all of this seemed t

be transcended by the egalitarian light falling through the white blinds The

anarchic freedom of the sculptures effect in the midst of the studios profusion

seemed a refreshing contrast to the rank and file of the young cadets from the

Virginia Milicary Institute who parade each week in historical uniform on the

fIeld next to their university wh iJe the echo of cannons and brass music

resounds in the artists studio Next to the window as if on the threshold to

the outside world the room reveals a magical space Here sits the master here

he hordes books and leuers here he welcomes visitors for a chat This is where

we conversed about his art won his approval and trust conferred on the plan

to bring (he precious and fragile works to the A]te Pinakothek in Munich

135

From here Cy Twomblys eye faJIs on the small seemingly disorderly yet forceshy

ful army of his sculptures as though from a secr t command po t

By contrast the artists private home is a personal realm rarely entered by

strangers The red brick building with white wooden porches c nforms to the

traditional architecture of the South Inside reign an order detectible only to

the ho t a variery of collectors items prints hunting trophies and books piled

into overflowing helves stacked on tables chairs and the Hoor In th mid t

of this trea ure trove for the ye and the mind the incredible beauty of some of

his wn sculptures ennobled by their pure whit and enigmatic appearance

call for the visit rs attention The 1992 work created on Jupiter Island (with

the isles sand n its base and crowned by two alder leaves) rises high with truly

fulkean elegance to sustain in lofty heights the barely felt weight of the leaves

wi th a tender gesture as it stand out from the surrounding flood of objects as

an expression of the will to form Beside it towers the most powerful of all

sculptures in Cy TWOlublys auvre On a squar base he has placed three drum

segments narrowing at the top and forming a severely pr portioned pyramid

Since ancient times this has been the mark of any monument and the artist

puts this consensus to use when in inscriptions he dedicates the work to the

memory of Assyrian king Assurbanipal (Sardanapal) who compiled in his

library at Nineveh the most important collection of Babylonian and Assyrian

literature Cy Twomblys erudition his penetrating of cultures his interest in

the empires of Cyrus and Alexander and moreover his knowledge and appro shy

priation of the poetics ofAncient times to our days that covers his auvre like a

closely knit imaginative net all this fuses into th is work to make it a mile shy

stone of his art In Cy Twonlblys home the monument recalling the memory

of a great bibliomaniac enters into a dialog with the stacks of books whence

the resident and artist draws his inspiration and knowledge finds the grai n

137

froHi which) nurtured by his spontaneity his an constantly re-germinates In

an exhibition such as that at the Alte Pinakothek Cy Twomblys sculptures

will without doubt reveal their innate beauty but [he secret of their genesis

their fertilization by an expansive mind remains concealed in the studio in

the anists library Only with this revelation did the journey to LexingtOn turn

into a pilgrimage to Virginia ro the roots of Cy Twomblys art

139

From here Cy Twomblys eye faJIs on the small seemingly disorderly yet forceshy

ful army of his sculptures as though from a secr t command po t

By contrast the artists private home is a personal realm rarely entered by

strangers The red brick building with white wooden porches c nforms to the

traditional architecture of the South Inside reign an order detectible only to

the ho t a variery of collectors items prints hunting trophies and books piled

into overflowing helves stacked on tables chairs and the Hoor In th mid t

of this trea ure trove for the ye and the mind the incredible beauty of some of

his wn sculptures ennobled by their pure whit and enigmatic appearance

call for the visit rs attention The 1992 work created on Jupiter Island (with

the isles sand n its base and crowned by two alder leaves) rises high with truly

fulkean elegance to sustain in lofty heights the barely felt weight of the leaves

wi th a tender gesture as it stand out from the surrounding flood of objects as

an expression of the will to form Beside it towers the most powerful of all

sculptures in Cy TWOlublys auvre On a squar base he has placed three drum

segments narrowing at the top and forming a severely pr portioned pyramid

Since ancient times this has been the mark of any monument and the artist

puts this consensus to use when in inscriptions he dedicates the work to the

memory of Assyrian king Assurbanipal (Sardanapal) who compiled in his

library at Nineveh the most important collection of Babylonian and Assyrian

literature Cy Twomblys erudition his penetrating of cultures his interest in

the empires of Cyrus and Alexander and moreover his knowledge and appro shy

priation of the poetics ofAncient times to our days that covers his auvre like a

closely knit imaginative net all this fuses into th is work to make it a mile shy

stone of his art In Cy Twonlblys home the monument recalling the memory

of a great bibliomaniac enters into a dialog with the stacks of books whence

the resident and artist draws his inspiration and knowledge finds the grai n

137

froHi which) nurtured by his spontaneity his an constantly re-germinates In

an exhibition such as that at the Alte Pinakothek Cy Twomblys sculptures

will without doubt reveal their innate beauty but [he secret of their genesis

their fertilization by an expansive mind remains concealed in the studio in

the anists library Only with this revelation did the journey to LexingtOn turn

into a pilgrimage to Virginia ro the roots of Cy Twomblys art

139

Since ancient times this has been the mark of any monument and the artist

puts this consensus to use when in inscriptions he dedicates the work to the

memory of Assyrian king Assurbanipal (Sardanapal) who compiled in his

library at Nineveh the most important collection of Babylonian and Assyrian

literature Cy Twomblys erudition his penetrating of cultures his interest in

the empires of Cyrus and Alexander and moreover his knowledge and appro shy

priation of the poetics ofAncient times to our days that covers his auvre like a

closely knit imaginative net all this fuses into th is work to make it a mile shy

stone of his art In Cy Twonlblys home the monument recalling the memory

of a great bibliomaniac enters into a dialog with the stacks of books whence

the resident and artist draws his inspiration and knowledge finds the grai n

137

froHi which) nurtured by his spontaneity his an constantly re-germinates In

an exhibition such as that at the Alte Pinakothek Cy Twomblys sculptures

will without doubt reveal their innate beauty but [he secret of their genesis

their fertilization by an expansive mind remains concealed in the studio in

the anists library Only with this revelation did the journey to LexingtOn turn

into a pilgrimage to Virginia ro the roots of Cy Twomblys art

139

froHi which) nurtured by his spontaneity his an constantly re-germinates In

an exhibition such as that at the Alte Pinakothek Cy Twomblys sculptures

will without doubt reveal their innate beauty but [he secret of their genesis

their fertilization by an expansive mind remains concealed in the studio in

the anists library Only with this revelation did the journey to LexingtOn turn

into a pilgrimage to Virginia ro the roots of Cy Twomblys art

139