Many of Cy Twombly’s artworks have boat or ship symbols. In an interview with David Sylvester he talks of how the boat symbolises a passage through everything. He states that boats are prehistoric things. His boat images are based on a celtic boat with lots of oars.
http://www.cytwombly.info/twombly_writings2.htm
There are many images of boats in pre-historic art. It is a symbol which is understood all over the world.
Leeman suggests that Twombly was anxious to produce ‘effective’ pictures and discovered the primitive power of signs and symbols.
Leeman, R. (2005) CY Twombly: A Monograph. London: Thames and Hudson.
Simon Morley argues that, artists were attracted to primitive artworks and symbols because the markings were illegible in a modern sense but “they spoke an elemental, archaic language that could touch a universal level of communication” (Morley 2003:109).
Morley, S. (2003) Writing on the Wall: Word and Image in Modern Art. London: Thames and Hudson.
Ernst Kris holds a theory of art as communication. He states that the word art is used in our civilisation to mean a message or an invitation to common experience in the mind of a specific nature. He states that there is a communication at the level of the senses to “induce a sameness of vision, of experienced content” (Kris 1952:163).
Kris, E. (1952) Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art. New York: International Universitys Press.
