Cy Twombly's Untitled (A Gathering of Time), created in 2003, is a part of a series that marks a pivotal moment in the artist's illustrious career, blending abstraction with references to natural landscapes and historical events. This series, showcased during an exhibition at Gagosian in celebration of Twombly's seventy-fifth birthday, featured six new paintings alongside a sculpture, all of which were painted in his home state of Virginia. Moving away from his earlier focus on historical narratives, these works represent a shift towards a more abstract expression, utilizing color and light to evoke a sense of time and place​ (Gagosian)​.

The series includes seascapes inspired by Twombly's visit to St. Barthélemy in 2003. These paintings, executed in oil on canvas, are characterized by a horizontal landscape format that evokes the Caribbean Sea's turquoise palette. The transparent layers of paint mimic the tropical water's depth and atmosphere. However, upon closer inspection, the awkward, messy splotches of white, along with traces of red and yellow applied directly with the artist's fingers, reveal a darker, more tumultuous energy beneath the serene surface​ (The Art Institute of Chicago)​.

Twombly's work has always been deeply intertwined with the exploration of memory, history, and the natural world, and this series is no exception. Through a combination of gestural abstraction and symbolic coloration, A Gathering of Time encapsulates the duality of nature's tranquility and its underlying chaos. The awkwardness of the marks and the excess of the white splotches introduce an element of tension, suggesting a more complex emotional landscape beneath the initial impression of calm​ (The Art Institute of Chicago)​​ (Art Blart)​.

This exploration of natural themes and the passage of time continues Twombly's lifelong engagement with the landscapes around him, whether the historical sites of the Mediterranean or the tropical vistas of the Caribbean. The A Gathering of Time series, with its move towards greater abstraction, serves not only as a reflection of Twombly's artistic evolution but also as a meditation on the fleeting and often tumultuous nature of existence itself.