Cy Twombly - RIP

Famed American painter Cy Twombly, who first found the limelight with his calligraphic paintings in the late 1950s, has died in Rome aged 83.

The US artist was widely known for abstract works that used oil paint, pencil and crayon to create repetitive lines and scribbles on canvas.

‘It Does Not Illustrate’

In the only written statement Mr. Twombly ever made about his work, a short essay in an Italian art journal in 1957, he tried to make clear that his intentions were not subversive but elementally human. Each line he made, he said, was “the actual experience” of making the line, adding: “It does not illustrate. It is the sensation of its own realization.” Years later, he described this more plainly. “It’s more like I’m having an experience than making a picture,” he said. The process stood in stark contrast to the detached, effete image that often clung to Mr. Twombly. After completing a work, in a kind of ecstatic state, it was as if the painting existed but he himself barely did anymore: “I usually have to go to bed for a couple of days,” he said.

New York Times