School of Athens 1961

Cy Twombly made this painting, School of Athens, with paint, pencil, and crayon on canvas. Just imagine Twombly in his studio, the colors are muted, like a memory—pale pinks, yellows, and grays, bursting with energy. I can see him building up layers, scratching and smearing, each mark a thought, a feeling, a reference. The surface feels like a site of excavation. There's a real sense of freedom in his gesture, like the hand is moving without constraint. A scribble here, a smudge there, all adding up to something that feels both chaotic and deeply considered. He is in conversation with all the other painters. I can see how his work speaks to a longer tradition, even as it pushes against it. Twombly's paintings remind us that art is never really finished, that it's always in process.