Stumbled upon this interesting biography of an artist in The International New York Times. (Page 15 - 13-11-18) The title of the biography itself was a major attraction - Chalk: The Art and Erasure of Cy Twombly. The artist in perspective is Cy Twombly who lived a life of a recluse. Even though he was born in Virginia, United States he spent most of his life in Italy in the city of Naples. In his career as an artist, he had given only two interviews. When quizzed about his personal life, he had the tendency to craft stories. ‘Twombly is famously difficult and famously elusive, and this has not made his work any easier to see’. (Vogue Interview) The review begins with a wonderful use of a word that is used in hunting -'Spoor is a hunter’s word, for the scent an animal leaves behind in a forest, the scent you track to bag your prey. It might be a biographer’s word, too — the essence of a person that drifts out of his or her diaries and letters, the idiosyncratic, unmistakable traces that a biographer pursues in the archives'. The review contains descriptions about how the world viewed the works of Twombly. There are both intellectual reactions from literary figures like Frank O'Hara and Roland Barthes. The former describes the artistic creations of Twombly as “A bird seems to have passed through the impasto with cream-coloured screams and bitter claw-marks,”. I was curious about the first part of his name and was able to uncover the strangeness of Cy in the article which appeared in the Vogue magazine – ‘His father, a coach and, later, athletic director at Washington and Lee University there, had acquired the nickname Cy (after the legendary pitcher Cy Young) when he pitched for the Chicago White Sox one summer. He passed it on to his only son, who showed no enthusiasm for organized athletics’.
My journey into the life of this enigmatic soul started with the book review in the International New York Times but I was able to cull more details about this man from the Vogue interview which even talks about his reading patterns. ‘He reads for two or three hours every day in his eclectic fashion—history, poetry, travel books, Walter Pater’s essays, Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy’.
The interview also offers rare glimpses into the working style of this artist. In the words of his contemporary Rauschenberg- “He hates to make plans or schedules, moves from place to place on impulse, doesn’t always show up when he’s invited somewhere. “Cy says he’ll be there in half an hour,” Rauschenberg quips, “but he doesn’t say which month.”
As mentioned earlier in the blog, the book review talks about the emotional reactions of the world towards the work of this artist. There were instances where woman danced naked and another one kissed the painting leaving the lipstick smudge on the painting. They invite not just admiration but ardour. A woman once took off her clothes and danced naked in front of them; another kissed an all-white panel, leaving a bright lipstick mark (“a rape,” the curator fumed).
The artist Twombly reminds me of Banksy who had kept a shredder hidden inside his painting and the kind of furore that it created in an auction at Sotheby's in London.
The life and mind of an artist is as curious as of his creations. You can continue the journey of discovering Twombly using the links given below.
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