Sketch Book for the Artist

ANCIENT CARVINGS

Many ancient cultures have made and left behind

drawings and texts carved into stones or animal

bone, such as the Rosetta stone, the Babylonian

world map, and American Indian petroglyphs (see

p.241). This example is one of two chalk tablets

found in a Late-Neolithic pit, close to Stonehenge

in Wiltshire, England. The site's purpose is unknown;

theories suggest astrological observations, burials,

and the worship of the sun and ancient gods.

Cut lines Chalk carves easily. Precise lines suggest the use of a

sharp flint The framed rectangle of this image is echoed in that

of Abe's installation. The central pictorial space is also similarly

cut and divided by the considered arrangement of straight lines.

Neolithic Chalk Tablet

3,000-2,400BCE

21 / 4 x 21 / 4 in (58 x 58 mm)

ARTIST UNKNOWN

PROCESS

AND

HARMONY

CY TWOMBLY
Contemporary American artist who emerged
through the 1950s New York art scene in the heyday
of Abstract Expressionism and Action Painting. At the
2001 Venice Biennale,Twombly was presented with a
Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement.

Language Over the course of fifty years, Twombly has

evolved a raw, energetic, emotive, and sensuous language

that challenges the separation of word from image, and

drawing from painting. Many of his graffiti-like works

combine abstract gestures with statements. Here we

might seek to grasp letters in the turning of his line.

Untitled

1970

CY TWOMBLY