Leda and the Swan 1962

Cy Twombly’s “Leda and the Swan” is a force of nature rendered in frantic marks and colors. It feels less painted, and more like a frenzy of drawing with crayon, pencil, and maybe some rough brushwork. Up close, the surface reveals a layered struggle of erasures and overwriting, with colors like crimson, gray, and bone white fighting it out, with many other colors peeking out. There is a section on the right where the drawing is at its most agitated, with marks pressed down hard into the surface, like the hand wanted to go right through the canvas. The top right corner has a loose square, maybe a window, maybe the swan escaped, who knows? Twombly, like his contemporary Rauschenberg, took the language of Abstract Expressionism and ran it through a distinctly personal filter. His work always feels like an urgent transmission, and the meaning is less important than the feeling it conveys.