Late style and its discontents : essays in art, literature, and music /
'Late style' is a critical term routinely deployed to characterize the work of selected authors, composers and creative artists as they enter their last phase of production-often, but not only, in old age. Taken at face value, this terminology merely points to a chronological division in t...
| Other Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Oxford ; New York :
Oxford University Press,
2016.
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | 'Late style' is a critical term routinely deployed to characterize the work of selected authors, composers and creative artists as they enter their last phase of production-often, but not only, in old age. Taken at face value, this terminology merely points to a chronological division in the artist's oeuvre, 'late' being the antonym of 'early' or the third term in the triad 'early-middle-late.' However, almost from its inception, the idea of late style or late work has been freighted with aesthetic associations and expectations that promote it as a special episode in the artist's creative life. Late style is often characterized as the imaginative response made by exceptional talents to the imminence of their death. In their confrontation with death, creative artists, critics claim, produce work that is by turns a determination to continue while strength remains, a summation of their life's work and a radical vision of the essence of their craft. And because this creative phenomenon is understood as primarily an existential response to a common fate, so late style is understood as something that transcends the particularities of place, time and medium. |
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| Physical Description: | xiii, 270 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of color plates : illustrations, music ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages [241]-258) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780198704621 0198704623 |