Exhibition of the Week: Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings, Tate Liverpool

Cy Twombly brings a new dimension to what might have been a very correct but staid exhibition (Reuters)

Mix and match has become quite the thing for museum. Turner has been placed alongside Claude and Whistler; Monet alongside Turner; Cy Twombly, the American abstract artist, with Poussin. Tate Liverpool combines all three.

We all know Turner and Monet but Twombly, who has been seen as the master he was since his death, brings a new dimension to what might have been a very correct but staid exhibition.

What exhilarates is the “late style” that unites these creative spirits from different eras. All three had the ageing artist’s preoccupation with revisiting the themes of their youth and the anguish of declining libido.

By the time of their last decades, they had all abandoned fixed viewpoints and figuration for works that are so intense in their projection of atmosphere that they envelop you in their totality. The joy of it lies not in themes or parallels but in the conversation of three great painters at their fluent, fevered best.

(0845 604 7083; tate.org.uk) to 28 Oct