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The Art Institute of Chicago

The First Part of the Return from Parnassus and the Second Part of the Return from Parnassus
Author(s): James Rondeau
Source: Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, Vol. 34, No. 1, Notable Acquisitions at the Art
Institute of Chicago (2008), pp. 40-41, 95
Published by: The Art Institute of Chicago
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20205578
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Tf?ff*

Cy Twombly
(American,

born

1928)

The FirstPart of theReturnfrom

Parnassus

Parnassus

1961
Oil

1961

paint,

lead pencil, wax

crayon, and colored pencil on canvas;

240.7 x 300.7 cm (94 Vj x 118 Vs in.)


THROUGH

ENDOWMENT

INCOME FUND. WIRT

OF WALTER AITKEN.
ENDOWMENT.

DIRECTOR'S

crayon,

lead pencil, oil paint, and colored pencil on canvas;

FUND. MAJOR ACQUISTIONS


D. WALKER TRUST.

THROUGH
OF MARCIA

PRIOR PARTIAL GIFT OF THE STENN

FAMILY

IN MEMORY

STENN. 2007.64

ESTATE

FUND. HELEN A. REGENSTEIN

LAURA T. MAGNUSON

ACQUISITION

FUND. 2007.63

canvases merge
drawing, painting, improvisational writing, and symbolic
gesture in thepursuit of a direct, intuitiveformof expression.
TWOMBLY'S

Wax

200 x 260.5 cm ?7& ^4 x 102 lA in.)

PRIOR GIFT OF MARY AND LEIGH BLOCK, THE

MARIAN AND SAMUEL KLASSTORNER

CY

The Second Part of theReturnfrom

DISTINCTIVE

These recent acquisitions unite, for the first time, two


related but distinctworks. Executed in succession and titled
sequentially,

these

canvases

present

complementary

aspects

performative than illustrative in nature, the artist's


inimitable visual language of scribbles, scratches, and scrawls

of Twombly's art during the early 1960s?arguably his


most inventive, influential period. Indeed, as scholar Kirk

is employed to both suggestive and sublime effects.

Varnedoe

More

has argued, the paintings of 1961 are "among

4o

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IT
Y
?(Et

impressive,most emotionally wrought works of


Twombly's career, and not coincidentally theybring together
the most

in extreme

compression

the

contradictions

of

'griminess'

and 'insinuating elegance' that critics had seen cohabitating


inhis work since his first exhibition in 1951."1
early paintings mix schematic, cerebral, even
diagrammatic forms and numbers together with organic
These

pictograms

and often

active,

insistent

references

to

corporeal

and otherwise. Ambivalently biomorphic


processes?sexual
shorthand signs are recurrently framedwithin ruled boxes,
as if theywere details isolated for detached scrutiny.At the
same time, the graphlike passages of rising and falling lines
are typically underlined with ruled bases and overlaid with
sequences of numbers. These are parts of a general practice in
which Twombly juxtaposes motifs of the irregular,organic,
and intuitional with marks connoting the systematic,
unyielding, and cerebral.
The artist often titled his early 1960s works as florid
evocations of art,myth, and allegory. These paintings, for

?AjK~fJwy*L-%to*

example, refer to Mount Parnassus, the fabled home of


Apollo and theMuses that became known as the center of
poetry, music, and learning in ancient Greece. Parnassus is
also the subject of a 1511 Vatican fresco by Raphael. The
titleReturn from Parnassus is likely taken from the one of
the Parnassus

Plays,

a series

of

sixteenth-

and

seventeenth

century scholastic entertainments that presented a satirical


look at the adventures of two disillusioned graduates
troubled by the lack of both employment opportunities and
respect for learning in the largerworld.
To be sure, feelings of dislocation

partly motivated
Twombly's own move from the United States to Italy in
1959. These are, indeed, paintings made by an American
artist abroad. In their newly exuberant scale and color,

as reflecting
Twombly's works of 1961 have also been seen
his response to the great architectural spaces of Rome,
embracing the city's grandeur and decadence in its ancient,
Baroque,

and modern

incarnations.2

JAMES RONDEAU
41

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2. Louise Schouwenberg, Hella Jongerius (Phaidon, 2003), p. 47.

inTub, pp. 44-45.


1.Jeff
Koons, quoted inJeffKoons, ed.Angelika Muthesius (Taschen, 1992),p. 122.
2. JeffKoons, quoted in The JeffKoons Handbook, ed. Sadie Coles and Robert
Violette (AnthonyD'Offay Gallery, 1992), p. 100.

Woman

Sur, Long Island City,New York, pp. 28-29.


1.For more on digital architecture and itsorigins, see Fr?d?ric Migayrou and
Marie-Ange Brayer, eds.,Archilab: Radical Experiments inGlobal Architecture,
exh. cat. (Thames andHudson, 2001); and Joseph Rosa, Next Generation
Architecture: Folds, Blobs, and Boxes (Rizzoli, 2003).
2. For more on Diaz Alonso's work, see Joseph Rosa, Xefirotarch, Design
Series 4, exh. cat. (San Francisco Museum ofModern Art, 2006).

3. For more on Barney and Bacon, seeNancy Spector,Matthew Barney: The


CREMASTER
Cycle, exh. cat. (Guggenheim Museum Publications/Harry N.

Abrams, 2003); and Gilles Deleuze, Frances Bacon: The Logic of Sensation,
trans.Daniel W. Smith (University ofMinnesota Press, 2003).

Gold Mats, Paired?for Ross and Felix, Some Thames, and Were II, pp. 46-47.
1.Roni Horn, quoted inKathleen Merrill Campagnolo, StillWater (The River
Thames, for Example) (Site Santa Fe, 2000), n.pag.
Queen Luise ofPrussia, pp. 60-61.
i. For more on Rauch's effigy,see Juttavon Simson, Christian Daniel Rauch:
Oeuvre-Katalog (Mann, 1996), pp. 64-69. On Schadow's career in general, see
G?tz Eckhardt, Johann Gottfried Schadow, 1764-1850: Der Bildhauer (E. A.
Seemann, 1990).

Cow Suckling a Calf, pp. 30-31.


1. For one such pastoral idyll, see Ren? Russek, Hinduismus, Bilderkanon und
Deutung (BattenbergVerlag, 1986), pp. 132-33.
2. For a second-century example in theAllahabad Museum (AM81), see
Krishna Deva and S. D. Trivedi, Stone Sculpture in theAllahabad Museum, vol.
2 (Manohar, 1996), p. 228, pi. 313; for a sandstone example from tenth-century
seeWendy Doniger
Agroha, now in theVictoria and Albert Museum, London,

and George Michell, Animals inFour Worlds: Sculpturesfrom India (University


of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 107, pi. 74.
3. For the relief in theLos Angeles County Museum ofArt (Si44), see

Pratapaditya Pal, Indian Sculpture: A Catalogue of theLos Angeles County


Museum ofArt Collection, vol. 1 (Los Angeles County Museum ofArt/
University of California Press, 1986), p. 271.
4. For thework in the Fitzwilliam Album, seeMilo C. Beach, Early Mughal

Painting (Asia Society/Harvard University Press, 1987) pp. 31, fig. 16, 45; for
that in theMittal Museum (76.681), see George Michell, Catherine Lampert,
and Tristram Holland, eds., In the Image ofMan: The Indian Perception of the
Universe through 2000 Years of Painting and Sculpture, exh. cat. (Arts Council
of Great Britain/Weidenfeld andNicolson, 1982), p. 105.

Couch-Bed(Luohan
chuang), pp. 32-33.
1.Wang Shixiang and Curtis Evarts,Masterpieces from theMuseum
Chinese Furniture (Chinese Art Foundation, 1995), p. 12, cat. 6.

ofClassical

Chaekkori,pp. 34-35.
i. This entrywas greatly informed by Kay E. Black and Edward W. Wagner,
"Ch'aekkori Paintings: A Korean Jigsaw Puzzle," Archives ofAsian Art 46

(I993)> PP- 63-75; andWilliam Lipton and Yvonne Wong, "A Folding Screen
of Eight Paintings: Ch'aekkori," inWelcoming theAutumn Breeze, exh. cat.
(William Lipton, Ltd., 2004), n.pag, cat. 15.

The First Part of theReturn from Parnassus and The Second Part of theReturn
from Parnassus, pp. 40-41.
1.Kirk Varnedoe, "Inscriptions inArcadia," inCy Twombly: A Retrospective,
exh. cat. (Museum ofModern Art, New York/Harry N. Abrams, 1994), p. 34.
2. Ibid., p. 36.
Wall Drawing #274,Wall Drawing #574,Wall Drawing #821,andWall
Drawing #1257:Scribbles, pp. 42-43.
Wall Drawing #63 is shown as described inLeWitt's original diagram; Wall
Drawing #274was firstdrawn by Steingrem Laursen and Sol LeWitt and
is shown in itsfirst installation atGentofte Kommunes Kunstbibliotek,
was firstdrawn by Fransje
Copenhagen, Sept. 1975;Wall Drawing #574

Killaars and Hans van Koolwijk and is shown in itsfirst installation at


Accademia, Bonnefantenmusem, Maastricht, Oct. 1988;Wall Drawing #821was
firstdrawn by Artistides D? Leon, Sachiko Cho, Derek Edwards, Naomi Fox,

Henry Levine, Sunhee Lim, Jason Livingston, Emil Memon, Travis Molkenbur,
and Caroline Rothwell and is shown in itsfirst installation atAce Gallery,
New York, Apr. 1997;Wall Drawing #1257: Scribbles was firstdrawn by

Takeshi Arita, Eileen Jeng, and Jason Stec and is shown in itsfirst installation at
theArt Institute of Chicago, Mar. 2008.

1.Bernice Rose, "Sol LeWitt and Drawing," inSol LeWitt: The Museum of
Modern Art, ed. Alicia Legg, exh. cat (Museum ofModern Art, 1978), p. 31.

Festival inMontmartre, pp. 62-63.


1.Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, "Fondazione

amanifesto del Futurismo,"


Le Figaro, Feb. 20 1909; repr. inFuturismo, ed.Umbro Apollonio (Gabriele
Mazzotta Editore, 1970), p. 48.
2. Ibid., p. 47.
3.Umberto Boccioni, "La Pittura futurista?manifesto technico," Poes?a, Apr.
11 1910; repr. in ibid., p. 58. Boccioni's manifesto was signed by Baila, Carra,
Russolo, and Severini.
4. Gino Severini, Severini: The Futurist Painter Exhibits His Latest Works, exh.
cat. (Marlborough Gallery, 1913), n.pag., no. 6.
Untitled, pp. 64-65.
i. Even the ancient, and likely thefirst,pictorial reversal?the change from black
figuredGreek vase painting to its "negative" in the red-figured technique?did
not result in a visual abstraction of thismagnitude but ratherwas away to
improve the fluidityand naturalness of the figurai subject.

Birmingham, pp. 66-6j.


i.Martin Luther King, Jr.,A Testament ofHope: The Essential Writings and
Speeches ofMartin Luther King, Jr. (Harper Collins, 1986), p. 546.
2. The Birmingham Police, under commissioner and Ku Klux Klan member

Eugene "Bull" Connor, were notorious for theiruse of violence. The U.S.
Department of Justice eventually intervened,negotiating the desegregation of
downtown stores, a new integrated city commission, and the release of all jailed
student protesters in exchange for an end to the boycotts and demonstrations.
3. Even when photographs did not appear, theBirmingham demonstrations
remained front-page news. For PDF files of this coverage, seeNew York Times,

May

3-10, 1963,ProQuest Historical Newspapers:

The New York Times

(1851-2004), www.proquest.com.
4.1 thankGregory Harris forbringingmy attention to thewebsite www.
al.com/unseen, which featuresNorman Dean's photograph ofMattie Howard.
5.Back Streetwas a 1961 release starringSusan Hayward as an alluring

mistress. Damn theDefiant is theAmerican titleof the 1962 British filmH.M.S.


Defiant. StarringAlec Guinness, themovie dramatizes themutiny on board the
British frigateDefiant, a relativelypeaceful rebellion against poor conditions.
Mom Posing forMe, pp. 68-69.
1.Larry Sultan, Pictures fromHome (HarryN. Abrams, 1992), p. 18.
2.Mom Posing forMe is one in a group of over thirtyphotographs that

representPictures fromHome in theArt Institute's collection; this group was


determined in consultation with the artist. See Katherine Bussard, So theStory

Goes: Photographs by Tina Barney, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Nan Goldin, Sally


Mann, and Larry Sultan, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University
Press, 2006), pp. 100-17.
3. Sultan (note 1).
The Top Grossing Film ofAll Time, ix i, pp. 70-71.
1.With a running time of 3 hours, 17minutes, Titanic has over 280,000 frames.
For the artist, thefilm's appeal had less to do with the itsbox-office revenues
and everything to do with its status as a highly popular piece ofmass culture.
2. SeeWilliam J.Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the
Post-Photographic Age (MIT Press, 1992); Hubertus V. Amelunxen, ed.,
Photography afterPhotography: Memory and Representation in theDigital

95

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