Panorama 1955

"Panorama" is one of Cy Twombly's dark and scratchy paintings, probably made with oil paint and crayon or pencil. I often wonder what it's like to be Twombly, standing in front of that canvas, smearing and scraping. What does it feel like? The painting has emerged through some process of layering and erasure. You can see how some marks have been made into the wet paint, probably with the end of the brush or a stick. The surface is dark, almost like a blackboard, and the pale, nervous lines look like chalk. It reminds me a little of Joan Mitchell’s work, except looser, more raw. But it’s also totally Twombly—his paintings are never really "finished," never overworked, just this side of falling apart. Twombly’s like that cool older brother who shows you how to do something without really showing you—he leaves space for you to figure it out yourself. His work keeps asking us to reconsider what painting is and can be, reminding us that art is really a conversation across time.