{"id":87024,"date":"2015-06-25T11:14:59","date_gmt":"2015-06-25T15:14:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=87024"},"modified":"2015-09-09T10:19:30","modified_gmt":"2015-09-09T14:19:30","slug":"big-bent-ears-part-6-treatise-on-the-veil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/25\/big-bent-ears-part-6-treatise-on-the-veil\/","title":{"rendered":"Big, Bent Ears, Chapter 6: Treatise on the Veil"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"scale~1200x0~coachtwombl-1435159508-78\"<\/a>

Cy Twombly Sr., back row, far left, with the swim team he coached at Washington & Lee University. From the 1950 W&L yearbook, Calyx. Photograph courtesy of the Special Collections & University Archives, Washington and Lee University<\/p><\/div>\n

In the sixth chapter of \u201cBig, Bent Ears<\/a>,\u201d Sam Stephenson and Ivan Weiss\u2019s \u201cSerial in Documentary Uncertainty,\u201d the pair turn their gaze to Lexington, Virginia, where Cy Twombly was born in 1928; he grew up four blocks from Stonewall Jackson\u2019s grave, though you wouldn\u2019t know it to roam the town today. \u201cA primary problem in biography,\u201d they write, \u2018is that a subject\u2019s formative years are the least documented and the least available. <\/b>Twombly is no different; the boy and young man are difficult to find, difficult to feel.\u201d As they get a sense of the town and Twombly\u2019s history there, their research leads them to a meditation on his famous painting, Treatise on the Veil (Second Version)<\/em>, and the connection between its sense of tragedy and Twombly\u2019s roots in Virginia. First, though, they find a note on his high-school yearbook photo:<\/p>\n

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Tall, dark, and very outstanding\u2014Cy is really one of the boys. He\u2019s the only one of our class to have gained state-wide recognition (with his educated brush). Unlike many of us, he\u2019s often seen with some weighty volume on a deep subject, and is well acquainted with the best in music\u2014long-hair stuff, see? We know we\u2019ll have even more reason to be proud of you, Cy.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read the latest chapter here<\/a>, and catch up on the rest of the series:<\/p>\n