Cy Twombly (April 25, 1928 - July 5, 2011) was an American-born artist, who is revered as one of the most productive and versatile minds to have ever influenced contemporary art (Schirmer 42). Throughout his life, his work was ever changing, as he was constantly influenced by the various environments with which he came in contact. Twombly was trained at three different institution: the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Arts Students League of New York, and Black Mountain College (Leeman 14). In addition to his extensive art education, he also spent time living in places such as Europe and Africa (Leeman 19). Twombly took a particular interest in ancient, pictorial writing, such as Egyptian hieroglyphics, while in Africa and was drawn to the world of the Greek gods, as the Mediterranean culture fascinated him with the history, literature, and mythology of the western world (Schirmer 46). His form of expression through art was molded by his experiences over the course of twenty years, ultimately resulting in his utilization of “visual language” (Leeman 20), a unique combination of both legible and illegible markings and brush strokes which, according to Schirmer, “transform the drama of humanity into a sensual and poetic vision” (42).

By the time Twombly had reached the height of his artistic career, he focused largely on characters of classical mythology and antique figures (Brigstocke par. 1). He made use of visual language within his works by incorporating inscriptions, which were legible, yet remained a part of other shapes and markings of the artwork (Wijnbeek par. 3). It is through these seemingly random brushstrokes and nearly indecipherable letters and numbers that Twombly created his own tribute to anchors of Western culture (Phila. Museum of Art 340). His work is known for its cryptic fragments of words and pictorial metaphors which requires a great deal of attentive reading for a viewer to recognize and appreciate the image of the classical past.

Twombly’s Fifty Days at Iliam, currently displayed in its own room at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is a perfect example of his rather untraditional style of art inspired by, “Characters from classical mythology and antique figures and sites” (Brigstocke).  A common trend of Twombly’s is to indicate a vision, a sort of simplified representation of their sources in his designs (Leeman 95).   These ten panels, in particular, “…evoke incidents from Homer's epic poem in Twombly's characteristic synthesis of words and images” (Philadelphia Museum of Art).  Through his individual technique, he recreated a vision inspired by Western literature, one that embodies the final fifty days of the Trojan War as composed through Homer’s Iliad (Brigstocke).  Twombly purposefully designed the pieces so that the four located on the left side of the room present an action packed Greek mood, while the final four panels on the right side portray a more relaxed Trojan character (Temkin et.al 133).  This sort of sensational progression, which Brigstocke refers to as “synchronic,” ultimately creates a historically sequential, “diachronic” representation of the war, beginning with the powerful warrior Achilles (depicted on the first canvas located in a separate room from the remaining nine), and commencing with a mysterious expression of death (Philadelphia Museum of Art 340).  One last notable aspect of the placement of the panels is the centrality of the sixth panel which honors Achilles, Patroclus, and Hector, the three fallen heroes of the Trojan War (Temkin et. al 133).  The Fifty Days at Iliam also demonstrates the numerous mediums and materials that Twombly undertook in his creations.  Composed of oil, oil crayon, as well as graphite on canvas, this piece exhibits a range of artistic textures and tools.  Overall, these ten pictures portray, “Twombly’s continual reawakening to language with the appearance of some very different kinds of sign: expressive lines, pictographs, words, reminiscences of ancient symbols, as well as…ideograms, which were supposed to translate ideas directly” (Leeman 81).  As a result, a deep analysis and observation of the Fifty Days at Iliam can accurately represent the incredibly unique and intellectually stimulating character of Twombly’s art.