A Classicist’s Encounter with Cy Twombly’s Fifty Days at Iliam

In the Spring, I recorded a podcast for the Philadelphia Museum of Art about Cy Twombly’s Classicism. The first half is a talk based on the introduction I delivered at the American Philological Association Annual Meeting in January for a panel I put together called Abstracting Classics: Cy Twombly, Modern Art and the Ancient World (here is a link to the abstracts of the five papers presented http://apaclassics.org/index.php/annual_meeting/143rd_annual_meeting_abstracts_table// & scroll down to no. 28). The second part is a general discussion of the Fifty Days at Iliam series (1978) housed at the Museum. You can access the blog via the Museum website (under ‘Lectures’):

http://www.philamuseum.org/podcast/

Or directly from iTunes: 

http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/pma-lectures/id213621946?mt=2

While I mainly discuss Fifty Days at Iliam, I also refer to three other Twombly paintings (one of which you may recognize as the background to this blog!):

Cy Twombly Solon I (1952)
Cy Twombly Untitled I (Bacchus) (2005)
Cy Twombly Academy (1955)

And, although it is no substitute to visiting the gallery (http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/85709.html), here is an installation view, followed by the 10 paintings of the Fifty Days at Iliam series.

Happy listening!

Cy Twombly Fifty Days at Iliam. (1978) In ten parts.

One thought on “A Classicist’s Encounter with Cy Twombly’s Fifty Days at Iliam

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.