Rape of Roman Torsos 1982

Jean-Michel Basquiat made *Rape of Roman Torsos* with a riot of black paint, raw strokes, and flashes of red that jolt you awake. Imagine him working, maybe in a frenzy, stepping back, adding, obscuring. I wonder, was he thinking about art history, those classical forms broken down and re-imagined, or maybe just the sheer energy of bodies, distorted but still present? The surface is alive with a kind of nervous energy, the figures fighting to emerge. It's raw, but there’s also a sophistication in the way he balances the composition, and makes each line count. That big, white hand, for example: it's like he’s reaching out, pulling us into the chaos, daring us to make sense of it all. Basquiat always had this amazing ability to grab from everywhere—street art, cartoons, the masters—and make it his own. His work, like all great paintings, becomes this embodied expression, this messy, beautiful conversation across time.