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Lot Essay
Twombly's blackboard paintings are considered the most cerebral and lyrical works in his oeuvre. With its bold swirling wax crayon lines and its subtle variation of texture, Untitled is one of the most boldly poetic examples from this remarkable series, and only one of a small number of paintings from this series to be executed on a white background.
Begun in 1955 (fig. 1) and executed periodically between 1966 and 1971, Twombly's blackboard paintings are so-named because they were inspired by the notion of the classroom blackboard or children's primer as a unique and highly graphic conveyer of information. In a direct response to this tradition, Twombly adopted both the immediacy and spontaneity of the medium along with the rectangular blackboard format as a means of exploring and expressing his own highly sophisticated ideas about time, space and motion in a simple graphic way.
Using a continuous swirling line that progresses from left to right in a series of free-form loops, Twombly conveys a remarkable sense of the continuum of time and motion in a unique style that is loose and yet also measured. Though repeated, each scrawling loop is clearly different from all others, a unique and distinctive mark that is a cyclical graphic record of its own moment of creation and yet also a part of a continuous line whose dimensions are set by the rectangular boundaries of the canvas.
In this way the looping lines of the blackboard paintings allude to modern notions of time and motion being intertwined in a larger space-time continuum. In its overt reference to the precise motion and action of the artist as he creates this very fluid line, Untitled clearly recalls the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock (fig. 2). However, the measured progression of the line in a writing-like horizontal format illustrates Twombly's more analytical more scientific approach to his work. Though spontaneously created, the scrawled lines of Twombly's blackboard paintings grew out of studies the artist made of the seemingly random movement of air waves and water currents. They also reflect the influence of the Futurist artists Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni's experiments with abstracted lines of force and motion (fig. 3).
The works that Untitled most closely resembles however, are the sketches and nature studies of Leonardo da Vinci. Twombly directly acknowledged Leonardo as an influence on his work by incorporating the great Renaissance master's sketches for the Deluge alongside his own scrawled variations on the same subject in a collage that he executed in the same year as the present painting. Untitled, with its texturally layered white background over and into which Twombly's vibrant line has been both scrawled and incised, conveys a similar sense of rhythm and wave-like form. A continuous cyclical progression of seemingly abstract form, it is an outstandingly lyrical work that poetically evokes a powerful sense of both unity and diversity.
Like so many of Twombly's works, the simplicity and colorlessness of these forms closely reflect the unique atmosphere of the time and place in which the work was made. Exectued in 1968 in New York, Untitled can clearly be seen to reflect the Minimalist ideals so favored amongst the avant-garde in New York in the late 1960s.
In its denial of subjectivity, its reductive coloring and repetitive looping form, Untitled is a work that closely equates with a Minimalist aesthetic. Yet its Italian-inspired experimentation with lines of motion and action and its investigation of the thin line between chaos and order, strictly speaking, places it outside this field and perhaps closer to the more expressive work of New York artists like Richard Serra and Eva Hesse.
(fig. 1) Cy Twombly, Free Wheeler, 1955.
Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach.
(fig. 2) Jackson Pollock, Number 32, 1950.
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf.
© 2000 Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
(fig. 3) Umberto Boccioni, Studio per Gli addii--I, 1911.
The Museum of Modern Art (Gift of Victor Baer), New York.
Begun in 1955 (fig. 1) and executed periodically between 1966 and 1971, Twombly's blackboard paintings are so-named because they were inspired by the notion of the classroom blackboard or children's primer as a unique and highly graphic conveyer of information. In a direct response to this tradition, Twombly adopted both the immediacy and spontaneity of the medium along with the rectangular blackboard format as a means of exploring and expressing his own highly sophisticated ideas about time, space and motion in a simple graphic way.
Using a continuous swirling line that progresses from left to right in a series of free-form loops, Twombly conveys a remarkable sense of the continuum of time and motion in a unique style that is loose and yet also measured. Though repeated, each scrawling loop is clearly different from all others, a unique and distinctive mark that is a cyclical graphic record of its own moment of creation and yet also a part of a continuous line whose dimensions are set by the rectangular boundaries of the canvas.
In this way the looping lines of the blackboard paintings allude to modern notions of time and motion being intertwined in a larger space-time continuum. In its overt reference to the precise motion and action of the artist as he creates this very fluid line, Untitled clearly recalls the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock (fig. 2). However, the measured progression of the line in a writing-like horizontal format illustrates Twombly's more analytical more scientific approach to his work. Though spontaneously created, the scrawled lines of Twombly's blackboard paintings grew out of studies the artist made of the seemingly random movement of air waves and water currents. They also reflect the influence of the Futurist artists Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni's experiments with abstracted lines of force and motion (fig. 3).
The works that Untitled most closely resembles however, are the sketches and nature studies of Leonardo da Vinci. Twombly directly acknowledged Leonardo as an influence on his work by incorporating the great Renaissance master's sketches for the Deluge alongside his own scrawled variations on the same subject in a collage that he executed in the same year as the present painting. Untitled, with its texturally layered white background over and into which Twombly's vibrant line has been both scrawled and incised, conveys a similar sense of rhythm and wave-like form. A continuous cyclical progression of seemingly abstract form, it is an outstandingly lyrical work that poetically evokes a powerful sense of both unity and diversity.
Like so many of Twombly's works, the simplicity and colorlessness of these forms closely reflect the unique atmosphere of the time and place in which the work was made. Exectued in 1968 in New York, Untitled can clearly be seen to reflect the Minimalist ideals so favored amongst the avant-garde in New York in the late 1960s.
In its denial of subjectivity, its reductive coloring and repetitive looping form, Untitled is a work that closely equates with a Minimalist aesthetic. Yet its Italian-inspired experimentation with lines of motion and action and its investigation of the thin line between chaos and order, strictly speaking, places it outside this field and perhaps closer to the more expressive work of New York artists like Richard Serra and Eva Hesse.
(fig. 1) Cy Twombly, Free Wheeler, 1955.
Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach.
(fig. 2) Jackson Pollock, Number 32, 1950.
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf.
© 2000 Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
(fig. 3) Umberto Boccioni, Studio per Gli addii--I, 1911.
The Museum of Modern Art (Gift of Victor Baer), New York.