The crowd: momentum, energy and the work of Cy Twombly

Fisher, Allen (2016) The crowd: momentum, energy and the work of Cy Twombly. In: Imperfect Fit: Aesthetic Function, Facture, and Perception in Art and Writing since 1950. Modern and Contemporary Poetics . The University of Alabama Press, pp. 127-141. ISBN 9780817358723 (print); 9780817390631 (ebook)

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Abstract

The paper proposes to bring comprehension of momentum and energy into understanding through a discussion of the graphic work of Cy Twombly. The research is limited to work made by Twombly in the period 1951-1987. The phenomenology of looking at Twombly's work leads to a pragmatism that breaks down the conventionalist's proposal for cultural singularity in semiological discourse and presents cognition with unresolved issue and a challenge to description. In the process of the response to Twombly's work the paper demonstrates a contemplation of some perception theories proposed by scientists like Peter Medawar and writers like M. Merleau-Ponty; art historians like Meyer Schapiro and mathematicians like Kurt Gödel. These theories and experiences have been juxtaposed with research into, quotation from and commentary on all of the articles available from The British Library and Senate House catalogues, on Cy Twombly's work in English in 1987; from Charles Olson in 1952 and Roland Barthes and Herner Bastian in the '70s; to Richard Francis, Roberta Smith and Harold Szeeman in the 1980s. This regrettably missed out important articles written by Marjorie Welish, 'A Discourse on Twombly' 1979 and 'Early Paintings' 1983, both of which are reprinted in Marjorie Welish (1999) Signifying Art. Essays on Art after 1960, Cambridge University Press.