“Sculpture fled. And architecture has now run after. And for good reasons: that the round world (which it was their job to lead us to enjoy—to illuminate)—turned to rot. It had been treated cheap, not by these arts but by what makes arts: men.
All the golden things, including the mean, got debased. Then everything blew up, from the inside, from cause.
It is even possible that one has to include line as having suffered, and color. But this will not be so easily apparent, and the point of it can wait.
There came a man who dealt with whiteness. And with space. He was an American. And perhaps his genius lay most in innocence rather than in the candor now necessary. In any case, he was not understood.
What seems clear is, that two dimensions as surface for plastic attack is once more prime. And with all perspective as aid gone, the whole Renaissance. Even line gone. And maybe color—as too easy.”
An excerpt from Charles Olson’s short essay entitled “Cy Twombly” from “Collected Prose Charles Olson”.