Untitled (Roses)
Artwork FactoryDripping, flowing color, energetic yellow-orange-red squiggles combined with delicate, spidery handwriting. Four large-scale roses in bloom fill the wooden panels. Only on closer inspection do we notice the many details, especially the poems written by the artist on the canvases. The are part of a series of paintings that Cy Twombly dedicates to the rose.
Get creative
CY TWOMBLY AND POETRY
Six rose painting were created especially for the room on the upper level of Museum Brandhorst. In creating the works in 2008, Cy Twombly incorporated verses from well-known poets.
Poems
The rose on the left becomes a red space for a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, which he wrote for his tombstone. Cy Twombly makes a change: Instead of “lids” the last word is now “petals.”
Rose,
O pure
Contradiction,
the desire
to be no ones
Sleep
under so many
Petals.
After: Rainer Maria Rilke, Epitaph, 1925
Ponder this
How do you interpret the texts that appear in the “Roses” series?
MORE THAN A FLOWER
The rose. Countless varieties and bright colors, beguiling fragrance and nasty thorns. Symbol of love or of pain?
"I never really separated painting and literature because I’ve always used reference."
Cy Twombly
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Source
HOW THE PICTURES WERE CREATED
Cy painted the roses at the age of 80. Physical limitations and the size of the paintings made him inventive. In order to be able to reach the upper parts of the painting, he attached brushes to broom handles. A shaky affair – can you tell from the way the paint is applied?
THE ROSE IN ART
Where else in art do we encounter the rose?
![Arthur Jafa, Monster (2018), UAB \](https://www.museum-brandhorst.de/imgs/AJ-038a-e1557429056200-1280x1670.jpg?x75814 "Arthur Jafa, Monster (2018), UAB \")
