Nine Discourses on Commodus, Part V 1963

Cy Twombly made this painting, part V of his Nine Discourses on Commodus, as an arena where colors and marks become a record of his process. Look at the red, pink, and yellow cluster of paint, it’s like a floral explosion, or maybe something more turbulent, like a fire. There’s a raw, almost visceral quality to the way Twombly applies paint; it's thick in some places, scratched and thin in others. You can almost feel the movement of his hand, the energy of his gestures. Then your eye travels over to that cloud of white, and the pencil lines that run across the top, hinting at maybe some kind of spatial grid. That cloud feels like relief, an exhale after the build up. Twombly reminds me of Joan Mitchell, in the way he builds up layers of feeling through color and gesture. This work exists in a space of ambiguity, embracing multiple interpretations rather than settling on one fixed meaning.