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Summary
Summary
One of the nation's top art critics shows how six great artists made old age a time of triumph by producing some of the greatest work of their long careers--and, in some cases, changing the course of art history.
Ordinarily, we think of young artists as the bomb throwers. Monet and Renoir were still in their twenties when they embarked on what would soon be called Impressionism, as were Picasso and Braque when they ventured into Cubism. But your sixties and the decades that follow can be no less liberating if they too bring the confidence to attempt new things. Young artists may experiment because they have nothing to lose; older ones because they have nothing to fear. With their legacies secure, they're free to reinvent themselves...sometimes with revolutionary results.
Titian's late style offered a way for pigment itself--not just the things it depicted--to express feelings on the canvas, foreshadowing Rubens, Frans Hals, 19th-century Impressionists, and 20th-century Expressionists. Goya's late work enlarged the psychological territory that artists could enter. Monet's late waterlily paintings were eventually recognized as prophetic for the centerless, diaphanous space developed after World War II by abstract expressionists like Jackson Pollock and Phillip Guston. In his seventies, Matisse began to produce some of the most joyful art of the 20th century, especially his famous cutouts that brought an ancient craft into the realm of High Modernism. Hopper, the ultimate realist, used old age on occasion to depart into the surreal. And Nevelson, the patron saint of late bloomers, pioneered a new kind of sculpture: wall-sized wooden assemblages made from odds and ends she scavenged from the streets of Manhattan.
Though these six artists differed in many respects, they shared one thing: a determination to go on creating, driven not by the bounding energies of youth but by the ticking clock that would inspire them to produce some of their greatest masterpieces.
Author Notes
Richard Lacayo was a longtime writer and editor at Time, and from 2003 to 2016 the magazine's art and architecture critic . He has also contributed articles on those subjects to People , Foreign Policy , and Graydon Carter's new online publication Air Mail . He is the coauthor, with George Russell, of Eyewitness: 150 Years of Photojournalism . In 2013, he delivered one of the annual Clarice Smith Lectures at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, on artists in old age.
Reviews (2)
Kirkus Review
A leading art critic examines the lives of artists who started down a new path in their later years. In these six illuminating portraits--of Titian, Goya, Monet, Matisse, Edward Hopper, and Louise Nevelson--Lacayo, the former longtime art and architecture critic for Time, pays particular attention to the influences that their later work exerted. "Old age can be no less liberating, if it brings with it the confidence to try new things," writes the author. "Young artists may experiment because they have nothing to lose. More established ones can do the same because they have nothing to fear." Titian abandoned the polished surfaces of his classic style and adopted a free-flowing method, with heavy pigment used to inject texture and dynamism. Goya's series of late works, known as the Black Paintings because of their psychological, nightmarish intensity, opened the way for the imaginary to be used as subject matter. Monet's massive panels of water lilies emphasized color and tone over structure and perspective, influencing a generation of abstractionists. Matisse, who struggled with mobility issues caused by complications from surgery for abdominal cancer, embarked on a new style of drawing and created a remarkable series of works using cut-out colored paper, showing how simple forms could yield complex meanings. In his final decade, Hopper created surreal paintings, moving decidedly away from his earlier emphasis on realism. His landscapes became simplified and dislocated, and one of his most interesting late works depicts only columns of sunlight in an empty room. Nevelson had built her reputation on complex pieces for gallery spaces before making a radical shift toward large-scale works for urban landscapes. Lacayo provides a biography of each artist and reproductions of crucial works, showing how they arrived at their late-life transition. Through these vivid minibios, the author shows that it is never too late to find a different way of looking at the world. A fascinating book written with the authority that comes with a great depth of knowledge. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The lives of six brilliant artists who defied convention, including some who finally gained acclaim in their later years, fully emerge in this engrossing read from art critic Lacayo. Each of the artists spotlighted in this collective biography receives an intimately detailed and deeply nuanced portrait. He begins with Titian, who adopted a loose-brushwork technique late in his career and achieved a rarefied position as an original master who influenced such artists as Velázquez and Peter Paul Rubens. Lacayo illuminates Spanish artist Goya, who, despite becoming deaf, produced his defining works, the Black Paintings, in the twilight of his life. Also included is the depressive and vision-impaired Monet, who sought inspiration from his surroundings and went on to create the magnificent Water Lilies series. Matisse, Edward Hopper, and Louise Nevelson round out the group. Lacayo links them through the common theme of late-in-life fame. Additionally, he stresses their refusal to succumb to frailties and conform to trends, thereby going beyond perfunctory profiles of great Western artists while offering an unusual perspective on the creative process.
Table of Contents
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| 1 Titian | p. 12 |
| The Modern Artist | |
| 2 Goya | p. 62 |
| Darkness Visible | |
| 3 Monet | p. 126 |
| The Water Cure | |
| 4 Matisse | p. 180 |
| Henri Scissorhands | |
| 5 Edward Hopper | p. 234 |
| Into the Light | |
| 6 Louise Nevelson | p. 276 |
| My Whole Life's Been Late | |
| Select Bibliography | p. 335 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 347 |
| Image Credits | p. 351 |
| Index | p. 355 |
