This book by Nela Pavlouskova covers Cy Twombly's artistic production between the ages of 75 and 83 when he succumbed to cancer and heart problems, and is a testament to his creative curiosity even as he approached death. There seemed to be little slowing down as his artistic voice remained clear and determined amidst the seeming chaos his imagery suggested. With the exception of the Lourve ceiling (for the Hall of Bronzes), a very graphic bit of mostly "Giotto blue", hard-edged circular motifs, and a list of great Hellenic sculptors, his work has been a fount of gestural illumination within a profound awareness of transience and decay. An earlier painting aptly titled "Analysis of the Rose as Sentimental Despair" (1985) sums up the dualities he grappled with as a maker of images without ever falling into illustration or cliche. The distress and doubt of those creations most certainly kept his paintings resonant with meaning, an expressive physicality, and the poetry of line.
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