In the mid-1980s, Cy Twombly established a residence at Gaeta, south of Rome on the Mediterranean Sea. His studio there is perched high on a hillside overlooking the bay of Gaeta, an active port where boats of all sizes and descriptions come and go. The studio is filled with light, and the works he has created there are often suggestive of the light and atmosphere of the sea. Winter Passage, with its large areas of white paper, virtually glows with light; and the interplay of white, red and yellow recalls the atmospheric effects of Turner, an artist highly admired by Twombly.

A frequent motif in works from Gaeta is the barge--"a form as simplified as the homemade toy boats the artist collects, and as basic as the representations on Greek vases and in Egyptian tombs" (K. Varnedoe, Cy Twombly, New York 1994, p. 50). The barge "is on the one hand an appropriate sign for the inveterate traveller. On the other hand such barges and barques which ferry to the other side are, as vehicles of transition, also frequent emblems of the voyage from life to death" (ibid.). Winter Passage, with its light and bright colors, seems to be about a passage--but a passage towards something, a release from the weight of the concerns of middle age to the freedom of the artist's later years.