Reading Cy Twombly: Poetry in Paint

Reading Cy Twombly: Poetry in Paint

<p>Many of Cy Twombly's paintings and drawings include handwritten words and phrases--naming or quoting poets ranging from Sappho, Homer, and Virgil to Mallarm©, Rilke, and Cavafy. Enigmatic and sometimes hard to decipher, these inscriptions are a distinctive feature of his work. <i>Reading Cy Twombly</i> poses both literary and art historical questions. How does poetic reference in largely abstract works affect their interpretation?</p><p><i>Reading Cy Twombly</i> is the first book to focus specifically on the artist's use of poetry. Twombly's library formed an extension of his studio and he sometimes painted with a book open in front of him. Drawing on original research in an archive that includes his paint-stained and annotated books, Mary Jacobus's account--richly illustrated with more than 125 color and black-and-white images--unlocks an important aspect of Twombly's practice.</p><p>Jacobus shows that poetry was an indispensable source of reference throughout Twombly's career; as he said, he "never really separated painting and literature." Among much else, she explores the influence of Ezra Pound and Charles Olson; Twombly's fondness for Greek pastoral poetry and Virgil's <i>Eclogues</i>; the inspiration of the <i>Iliad</i> and Ovid's <i>Metamorphoses</i>; and Twombly's love of Keats and his collaboration with Octavio Paz.</p><p>Twombly's art reveals both his distinctive relationship to poetry and his use of quotation to solve formal problems. A modern painter, he belongs in a critical tradition that goes back, by way of Roland Barthes, to Baudelaire. <i>Reading Cy Twombly</i> opens up fascinating new readings of some of the most important paintings and drawings of the twentieth century.</p>