Old Masters: Great Artists in Old Age

ISBN: 1852852909

Author: Dormandy, Thomas

Condition: New

"Ancora imparo" (Still I'm learning) -Michelangelo, Aged 87"If Heaven will grant me but ten more years, I promise to be a truly great artist." -Hokusai, Aged 89Kandinsky, Titian, Hals, Turner, Renoir and Munch, and a surprisingly large number of other major artists, lived to be over seventy-five. Some of their finest and most distinctive works, including Michelangelo's last Piet, Goya's Black Paintings and Monet's Water Lilies, were done in old age. Whether experimenting with new approaches, adopting new techniques, responding to changed circumstances and debilities, or reacting to the approach of death, the intensity of the late work of many of the greatest artists is striking.Childhood genius has often been studied but, astonishingly, this is the first book to draw attention to a considerably more important artistic phenomenon. Old Masters establishes beyond doubt the frequency with which elderly painters and sculptors reached new heights in their seventies and eighties and suggest why and how they did so.Beautifully illustrated and superbly written, Old Masters offers us a rare, intimate, and often surprising glimpse into the final days of some of the world's most cherished artists.Praise for Thomas Dormandy's The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis:"Dormandy weaves together cultural and medical history with the skill of a learned, witty, and humane scholar . . . strongly recommended." -Library Journal"Dormandy vividly details the long struggle against tuberculosis. . . . Prodigious research and an engaging anecdotal style make this a fascinating foray into the history of medicine." -Publishers Weekly"[A] marvelous book. . . . [It is} enlivened by Dormandy's mordant wit and idiosyncratic style." -Anita Brookner, The Sunday Times"One of the most readable medical histories ever." -Sunday Express