Master of the Well-Placed Splosh ; Cy Twombly Was Happy to Be Revered as a Great American Artist of Scribbles and Splashes. Then in the 1980s Something Changed: He Became a Darling of Intellectuals, Celebrated for His Literary References and Deconstructivist Games. but Why Bother with the Pseudery, Says Matthew Collings. What's Wrong with Just Being a Damn Fine Painter?

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What is it we want from paintings? What do we think they are? What are they supposed to do? Is there a language of painting? Should we learn? Why? Why shouldn't painting just do what we want it to do? Why do we have to jump through hoops trying to understand it? Why can't we just sit back and be entertained by it? What kind of a name is "Twombly" anyway?

These are some of the thoughts raised by the show of the American artist Cy Twombly's works on paper from the past 50 years, which opens at London's Serpentine Gallery next week. Now 76 Twombly is not known to a wide audience. He's an inner art-world star. His works sell for upwards of $3m - that puts him in the Picasso …