Cy Twombly's Photographs Show Different Side To Great Artist Of Our Time (PHOTOS)

Cy Twombly was one of the greatest artists of our generation.

His paintings, cryptic fields of "calligraffiti," derailed the course of art history from its abstract expressionist tracks. His painting-drawing hybrids were complex yet unpretentious; they mixed the feel of a classroom blackboard with an entire coded mythology, a new cultural memory. He created a code of rules which never before existed; he created a meta-script, a protean language.

Twombly had been snapping photos with his polaroid camera since an early age, capturing a wide range of objects from flowers to temples to colored pencils. His paintings contain no obvious subject, turning each of his marks into something beyond the expected with his careful touch, yet his photographs strip familiar objects of their subject-hood by turning them into ethereal visions, photographic moments.

'Cy Twombly: Photographs 1951-2010' will feature 100 of Twombly's photographs, a number of his pantings, and the cinematic portrait 'Edwin Parker' by Tacita Dean, which is a tribute to the recently deceased artist.

The exhibition will run until April 29, 2012 at the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels.

Also on HuffPost:

Comments

[jayalders]

08:08 AM on 02/11/2012

You think Cy Twombly was one of the greatest artists of our time?!! I find his paintings lacking in basic artistic skill, compositional interest and completely insulting to the legacy of fine art. My niece could paint better left handed and blind-folded. These photos are mere snapshots that any one could do.

But you know what. I don't want to be close minded and more than insulting Twombly's work, I generally would like to understand how you find anything redeeming in his work, photographic or otherwise. You must either see something that many of us do not, or you're completely fooled and ignorant to what good art is. Either way, I'd love to understand. Perhaps you can teach me something.

[NER2]

05:58 PM on 02/02/2012

There is nothing at all redeeming in these photographic images. I can't say anything about Twombly's paintings: I know nothing of them specifically and very little about painting generally. I do know something about photography; however, and I also know that a talent in one medium does not translate or commute to equal talent in another. Certainly there are people who can both paint and sing well, or who can play an instrument and dance well, but such individuals are exceptions to the rule. Twombly is no exception to the rule insofar as photography is concerned.

[JTWallace]

03:10 PM on 02/02/2012

I will never forget the first time I observed an expressionist painting with all the colors of pale blues, reds, thick applications of different shades of green for trees. Lights and streets full of activity. I was shocked at their beauty and never forgot that first moment. Prior, I had only seen dark, dreary paintings of Reneisence(excuse mispelling) paintings which were not very inspiring to me at least. But, the beautiful renditions of haystacks, streets, children, rivers and bridges changed my entire perspective of art. Today, I paint, draw, sketch, and create works of art based on that early inspiration which has filled my life with much pleasure.

[MarcEdward]

12:09 PM on 02/02/2012

Looks like the pictures an inattentive child would take.