Cy Twombly at the Collection Lambert

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Stimulated by Cy Twombly's wildly exuberant flower paintings installed in the Collection Lambert's gorgeous light-filled spaces, a hapless French visitor kissed one of the artist's earlier works on display upstairs, leaving a red lipstick stain and sparking a commotion in the popular press at this breach of French "civility." Created specifically for the garden-view galleries within the 18th-century hotel particulier (though recently shown again at Gagosian Gallery's 21st Street space in Chelsea), Twombly's new series of 12 paintings, titled "Blooming: Scattered, Blossoms & Other Things," was inspired by a citation from Hokusai in which the Japanese master assessed his progress in old age, promising a penetration of "the mystery of things" at 90 and total expressiveness at 110.

It is difficult to imagine how the 79-year-old Twombly might be able in any way to transcend these luscious, color-mad depictions of huge, radiantly fleshy peonies, splashed onto surfaces in explosions of rich drippy paint. Five 18-foot-long untitled paintings on wood board (all 2007) each present six to 10 plump, stemless blossoms on backgrounds of various colors. Text fragments enliven the works, heightening their lyrical appeal. The pale green field of one of the paintings includes three haikus referring to the bold delicacy of the peony blossom. In a goldenhued work, the text commends the samurai Kusunoki, who, according to legend, removed his armor to honor the flower.

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Other paintings in the series, on canvas, seem like testruns for the big works. In one, repeated gestural squiggles in blue-violet map out ovoid flower shapes on a white background. Another, in scribbled calligraphy, seems to be an accompanying text for the works, reporting the unfathomable ecstasy inspired by a heady bouquet.

The Lambert also included a selection from the past decade of 15 spare, crudely lyrical sculptures executed in bronze and plaster, as well as an adjunct show of its own remarkable collection of Twomblys. But the large peony paintings were the major attraction. After the flesh--and blood-colored purgation conjured by "Bacchus"--his previous series of large works shown at Gagosian in New York in 2005--Twombly seems to have reached a new level of expression in openly joyous, celebratory works that bring to mind some of the great culminating achievements of Bonnard and Matisse.

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