Cy Twombly's transitional period during the 1950s marks a pivotal moment in his career, reflecting a profound exploration and evolution of his artistic language. This era encapsulates his journey from the influences of abstract expressionism and the burgeoning New York School to his unique, scribbal, and symbolic style that would come to define his oeuvre.
In the early 1950s, Twombly's work began to diverge from the figurative, influenced by his exposure to Dadaist and Surrealist artists during his formal art education in Boston and New York. His association with Robert Rauschenberg, whom he met at the Art Students League, further encouraged his shift towards abstraction. A grant from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in 1952 allowed Twombly and Rauschenberg to travel through North Africa and Europe, deeply impacting Twombly's artistic vision. During this time, Twombly's engagement with ancient artifacts, Etruscan relics, and the Mediterranean landscape began to surface in his work, enriching his visual vocabulary with themes and motifs that would persist throughout his career (The Art Story) (Wikipedia).
Twombly's transition also involved a stint in the U.S. Army as a cryptographer, an experience that introduced a new layer of coded language and secrecy into his art. After his service, he returned to New York, where he further developed his signature style. By 1955, Twombly was incorporating symbols and scrawls that approached language into both his paintings and sculptures, a method recalling Jackson Pollock's action painting but distinguished by Twombly's unique use of aggressive, effacing marks (National Gallery of Art).
The late 1950s saw Twombly moving to Rome, which marked a significant shift in his life and work. His marriage to Italian artist Tatiana Franchetti and his immersion in the rich classical and Renaissance heritage of Italy deepened his engagement with classical themes. This period was characterized by a tranquil and light tone in his work, which began to allude more explicitly to classical culture and literature. Twombly's work from this time on displayed a more vibrant color palette and greater scale, drawing on themes of eroticism, violence, and the pastoral, influenced by his Mediterranean surroundings (Wikipedia).
The transitional period of the 1950s thus stands as a critical phase in Cy Twombly's artistic journey, bridging his early influences with the mature style that would earn him a place among the foremost artists of the 20th century. His work from this era encapsulates the synthesis of abstract expressionism, ancient history, and personal symbolism, laying the groundwork for the distinctive, enigmatic, and poetic quality of his later work.