Roman Notes, ca 1970

Cy Twombly

Annika Gunnarsson: It looks as if someone has scribbled something in a hurry on a scrap of paper in illegible handwriting, or as if someone has tried to imitate writing.

The lines undulate across the paper in two shades of blue. They almost roll across the surface as if one colour follows the other.

After a while, it’s the aesthetics of the line and its flow that becomes the interesting thing to follow, rather than what the writing might convey in terms of linguistic content, because, as I said, there is nothing there to read, only to interpret.

The movement of the crayon across the paper tells us of a rhythmic continuity that moves through time and space, just as sheet music can make us hear sound when we see the notes.

Cy Twombly’s “Roman Notes” was created at a time in the 1960s when art was dissolving the boundaries between different forms of expression such as poetry, music, drawing and painting.

Throughout his artistic career, Cy Twombly followed his own unique intellectual path, working against artistic movements such as Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, which he felt emphasised an aggressive masculinity.

Instead, Cy Twombly linked modernism to the cultural, historical, and poetic references of classical antiquity, creating a sensual and intimate dialogue between thought, hand, material, and experience.