The title of this blog is copied from a review of the Cy Twombly show in NYC. It’s so ironic that I should read about his art right after sharing my understanding of Caruncho. As much as the landscape designer is using clear geometric shapes in his work, you’d be hard pressed to find any in Twombly’s scrambled lines. And Twombly is so familiar to me.
There is no defense of his use of line in the Twombly review. But what I have always loved about his art is how free he is to capture many different kinds of lines, many sensibilities. Drawn with sensitivity. With the human hand.
Somehow this brings up a memory of when I was a small child. I recall drawing at night on paper my architect father brought home – big expansive blank paper. And I noticed that he saved some of the drawings that my siblings made. In my mind, they were the “correct/good” drawings. They looked perfect to my eyes at the time. Years later, I looked again at a few that were framed. No. Not perfect. But yes, perfect. They caught the defining essence of the horse, or the bird.
What is that so often quoted saying of Picasso’s? Something like, “It took me four years learn to draw (paint?) like Raphael and a lifetime to draw like a child”. You get the gist. He’s not talking geometry.
“What’s in a line? Everything”.