Cy Twombly Sculptures

This weekend I spent much of my time working, luckily enough for me though my job tends to revolve around research and I love taking in different information about creatives and designers. I recently talked about the new additions to my bookshelf in a previous post which included the likes of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Tadao Ando, both contemporary architects. Although we’ve talked a lot about architects and architecture recently it seems about the right time to break up the content with an artist, Cy Twombly was my first port of call as his sculptures really enticed me. Alexander Calder was also of deep interest, hopefully I’ll cover him at a later date, but I thought Cy Twombly could be classed as slightly more spontaneous in his works.

If you don’t already know Edwin Parker “Cy” Twombly, Jr. was an American artist who emerged from the New York art world in the early 1950’s. He had a distinctive approach to painting and sculpture that evaded most movements at the time, some might like to call him a “free spirit” and had his own individual taste. Most of his works, including the ones that you see before your eyes, were inspired by ancient Mediterranean history and geography, Greek and Roman mythology, and lengthy narrative poems. Many of these presented here are from his first series of sculptures and are based between 1953-1959 and 1976-1980, mainly assembled from discarded objects and found materials such as pieces of wood, packaging, then covered in white paint and plaster.

These specific sculptures in my eyes are brilliant, they exude creativity to the maximum but they also have boundaries and are quite structured. Personally I like the fact that we have rules in design and art, it makes sense, just like life we have barriers and are confined to certain expectations and guidelines. Design can push the limit but it still has to stay on the borders, just like these sculptures which are erratic in their nature but at the same time considered. Definitely something I thought was interesting and different, particularly because I’m used to function rather than viewing pleasure. Anyways, this is only a small selection of Cy Twombly’s works, if you want to see more head towards his website below. Hopefully this has inspired you to go and research this great creative and learn more about his works and life time achievements. I’m definitely inspired!

www.cytwombly.info

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