Advance praise for

READING CY TWOMBLY: POETRY IN PAINT

“This is a beautiful and challenging book. Mary Jacobus takes us into the heart of Cy Twombly’s practice, his reading, editing, remembering, and remaking of poetry from Homer and Virgil to Rilke and Paz. In doing so, she illuminates Twombly in new and remarkable ways. I loved it.”

—EDMUND DE WAAL, artist and author of The Hare with Amber Eyes

“In this brilliantly erudite and illuminating study, Mary Jacobus, who is in the front rank of contemporary critics, addresses the languages of paint as well as poetry. As she investigates how Twombly’s use of quotation both complements and immensely deepens the power of his visual images, she takes us right to the heart of his doubly articulate genius.”

—ANDREW MOTION, UK Poet Laureate, 1999–2009

“The scrawled quotations, ruins of mythic poetry, and trailing verbal scribbles in Cy Twombly’s work have fired Mary Jacobus to shape an enraptured yet scrupulously precise conversation with the artist’s imaginative world. Her deep literary knowledge, fine close readings, subtle psychoanalytical insights, and sheer sensuous delight in paint and color and stroke and rhythm combine here to create a rare and beautiful work of aesthetic philosophy.”

—MARINA WARNER, author of Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights

“Many who are not art historians have written about Cy Twombly, but precious few with Mary Jacobus’s rigor or fresh perspective. Her examination of Twombly’s annotated personal library has turned up revelatory details about his practices of reading, notating, and editing; the sometimes quite literal proximity of book to canvas; and more. Jacobus has done profound work and her book is enormously enriching.”

—KATE NESIN, author of Cy Twombly’s Things

“Illuminating and wide-ranging, this is a very significant book. Mary Jacobus’s access to Cy Twombly’s annotated personal library enables her to speak with unprecedented authority on the literary sources that the artist used.”

—STEPHEN BANN, author of Distinguished Images