Cy Twombly’s Roman Notes. Quote of the Week…
A wonderful quote by Roland Barthes on Cy Twombly’s distinctive lithographs, based on paintings of the same subject in 1971. Perfectly encapsulates Twombly’s work:
(image: © Christies’/Cy Twombly)
‘In his own particular way, Twombly tells us that the essence of writing is neither form nor usage but simply gesture - the gesture that produces it by allowing it to happen: a garble, almost a smudge, a negligence. We can reason this out through a comparison. What would be the essence of a pair of trousers (if it has one)? Certainly not that carefully prepared and rectilinear object found on the racks of department stores; rather the ball of cloth dropped on the floor by the negligent hand of a young boy when he undresses tired, lazy and indifferent. The essence of an object has something to do with the way it turns into trash. It is not necessarily what remains after the object has been used, it’s rather what is thrown away in use. And so it is with Twombly’s writings. They are the fragments of an indolence, and this makes them extremely elegant; it’s as though the only thing left after the strongly erotic act of writing were the languid fatigue of love: a garment cast aside into a corner of the page.”
- Roland Barthes, Non Multa Sed Multum 1976
(Quote found in Christie’s Print catalogue, for 31.3.10 Auction, King Street)
Love the Barthes quote - so what he is saying is that the piece of art is the post coital cigarette not the orgasm itself. Interesting but somwhat contradictory as it suggests the essence of the ‘thing’ is not ‘the thing’. i.e. the two are separate. Is this in fact possible or merely a perspective. Why can’t a folded pair of trousers be the essence of a pair of trousers? Who says it can’t. Surely the whole point of objects and things is that their essence is multiple - having the capacity to be both folded between tissue paper and discard indolently on the floor. And might that not be the point of Cy Twombly’s work - that writing can both be and mean anything - from chinese caligraphy, to poetry, to accountancy lists. It is its inderminacy that that is important, not its essential essence…
Thanks for your comment, Charlie. To me, Cy Twombly was not a straight talker - have a look here at this article, which featured in a very old article in ArtForum, in ‘94:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n1_v33/ai_16107179/
Barthes writes about a certain insouciant ‘deflationary gesture’ in Twombly’s artistic tone. imbued with an appearance of an incrongruity, a mockery…
–Petra, Blue Rim Gallery