by David W. Galenson (2005)
From the Publisher: When in their lives do great artists produce their greatest art? Do they strive for creative perfection throughout decades of painstaking and frustrating experimentation, or do they achieve it confidently and decisively, through meticulous planning that yields masterpieces early in their lives? By examining the careers not only of great painters but also of important sculptors, poets, novelists, and movie directors, Old Masters and Young Geniuses offers a profound new understanding of artistic creativity. Using a wide range of evidence, David Galenson demonstrates that there are two fundamentally different approaches to innovation, and that each is associated with a distinct pattern of discovery over a lifetime. Experimental innovators work by trial and error, and arrive at their major contributions gradually, late in life. In contrast, conceptual innovators make sudden breakthroughs by formulating new ideas, usually at an early age. Galenson shows why such artists as Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Cezanne, Jackson Pollock, Virginia Woolf, Robert Frost, and Alfred Hitchcock were experimental old masters, and why Vermeer, van Gogh, Picasso, Herman Melville, James Joyce, Sylvia Plath, and Orson Welles were conceptual young geniuses. He also explains how this changes our understanding of art and its past. Experimental innovators seek, and conceptual innovators find. By illuminating the differences between them, this pioneering book provides vivid new insights into the mysterious processes of human creativity.
Rebecca Solnit
A multidisciplinary compilation of nineteen incisive essays ranges from the formality of traditional art criticism to intimate, lyrical meditations as they explore nuclear test sites, the meaning of national borders and geographical features, and the idea of the feminine and the sublime.
Valerie Barnes Lipscomb and Leni Marshall
This groundbreaking text examines how artists on stage consciously perform age and aging. From Shakespeare to Beckett, dialogue and stage directions reveal varying understandings of age. Staging Age explores how performers respond to audience expectations, offering conscious--and unconscious--portrayals of the spectrum of age to their audiences. This essay collection is the first to address issues of age and performance in a variety of media, including theatre, film, and dance. --Book Jacket.
Hugh Honour
'This stylish and erudite thematic study of the influence Romanticism exerts upon Western culture and particularly the visual arts is the companion volume to Honour's equally valuable New-classicism.... The text is supported by a useful selection of illustrations.... Excellent footnotes and a good index.
Hughes Oliphant Old
Author "weaves the five biblical voices of invocation, proclamation, wisdom, prophecy, and covenant into a chorus of theology as praise. Starting from the two Testaments, he develops his themes through the history of Christian worship with variations embracing not only rites and prayers but also art, music, and, above all, hymnody. The book will help the reading pastor to construct and conduct a rich service with the Lord's people on the Lord's Day"--Back cover.