Late style and its discontents : essays in art, literature, and music

285 Pages·2016·2.16 MB·English

by  McMullan

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Late StyLe and it S diScontent S
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Late Style and its
discontents
Essays in Art, Literature, and Music
edited by
Gordon McMuLLan
and
SaM SMiLeS
1
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3
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Acknowledgements
This collection of essays has emerged from the editors’ shared interest in late style
both in and beyond our individual fields of study. First and foremost, we wish to
record our gratitude to peter Shaw for listening to us both rabbit on separately
about lateness and for deciding, as he put it, to ‘cut out the middleman’ and intro-
duce us so that we could bore each other rather than him. This, together with
peter’s cassettes (yes, really: cassettes) of late music, has been an inspiration.
We ran two conferences entitled ‘rethinking Late Style: art, Literature, Music,
Film’, the first at King’s college London in november 2007, the second at the
australian national university, canberra, in august 2008, under the auspices of
the Humanities research centre (Hrc) at old canberra House, events at which
some of the essays that appear in this collection were first aired. our thanks espe-
cially to roger Hillman, who helped us organize the canberra conference (and
kindly drove Mac to some of the australian capital territory’s finest wineries), and
to two people in particular at the Hrc: ian donaldson, wise and generous former
director, and Leena Messina, warm and efficient programs Manager. We are grateful
to Jaynie anderson, Gordon Bull, Liam dee, Helen ennis, Graham Hair, Melinda
Harvey, duncan Hose, John potts, George Kouvaros, claire roberts, Luke taylor,
and peter tregear in canberra, and, in London, to Sarah Lewis and Sophie Leighton-
Kelly, and to Stefano castelvecchi, elizabeth cowling, alex danchev, John
deathridge, cliff eisen, denis Flannery, Jenny Graham, Suzanne Gossett, robert
Hampson, philip Horne, William Kinderman, ulf Kuester, russ Mcdonald,
Glenn Most, Mignon nixon, Bettina Schergaut, richard Shiff, Mary ann Smart,
Shane Weller, and alastair Wright. We would like also to thank Maryanne Stevens
and cecilia treves at the royal academy for their help and support.
We are, of course, very grateful to the contributors to this collection both for
their wonderful essays and for their patience with the slow unfolding of the pro-
cess, as we are to Jacqueline Baker and her (remarkably cheerful) team at oxford
university press. We have very much appreciated Jacqueline’s engagement with the
idea of late style and her belief in the significance of this project. We are grateful
too to oup’s anonymous readers who supported the collection’s publication and
made constructive suggestions for improving it. Marilyn inglis deserves a special
mention of thanks for her careful and sensitive editing of such a wide-ranging
book. We would also like to thank rosalba putrino (onderosa indexing) for preparing
the index. Thanks, too, Bob Marriott and Gayathri Manoharan from Spi Global
for their careful sight and attention in preparing the book for publication.
Mac would also like to thank the department of english at King’s college
London, the Leverhulme trust, and the arts and Humanities research council for
providing much-appreciated periods of leave when he first began to work on late
style. He is very grateful to david amigoni for ongoing conversations about late-
life creativity, and to colleagues at King’s, especially Sarah Salih, neil Vickers, Lucy
Munro, and Brian Hurwitz, for their support. He continues to appreciate the sus-
tained efforts of david Matthews, John potts, philip Mead, Jenna Mead, rohan
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vi Acknowledgements
Mead, Jeni porter, Kylie Message, amanda and adrian o’callaghan, and Kate
Flaherty in making him feel so entirely at home in australia whenever he gets the
chance to visit. and he would like to thank Sam both for tolerating a shocking
level of ignorance of art history and for living in such a peaceful part of the world,
buzzards and all.
Sam would also like to thank the Leverhulme trust and the paul Mellon centre
for Studies in British art for their support. He is especially grateful to Gordon Bull
for standing in for him in canberra, and to edith Southwell for her help with the
translation of Brinckmann’s Spätwerke Grosser Meister.
Gordon McMullan
and Sam Smiles
Walthamstow and
Nadderwater 2016
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Contents
Plates ix
Contributors xi
introduction: Late Style and its discontents 1
Gordon McMullan and Sam Smiles
i. LateneSS, HiStory , Modernity
1. From titian to impressionism: The Genealogy of Late Style 15
Sam Smiles
2. The ‘Strangeness’ of George oppen: criticism, Modernity,
and the conditions of Late Style 31
Gordon McMullan
ii. LateneSS and tHe LiFe courSe
3. Historicizing Late Style as a discourse of reception 51
Linda Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon
4. Making darwin Late: Later Life and Style in evolutionary
Writing and its contexts 69
David Amigoni
5. in the antechamber of death: picasso’s Later paintings 81
Jeremy Lewison
iii. conStructinG L ateneSS
6. The ‘Late Styles’ of Gioachino rossini 105
Philip Gossett
7. Saving Schubert: The evasions of Late Style 120
Laura Tunbridge
8. perceptions of Lateness: Goethe, nietzsche, Thomas Mann,
and d. H. Lawrence 131
Michael Bell
iV. tHe tiMe and pL ace oF L ateneSS
9. Suffering Sea changes: Jane austen’s afterlives and the possibilities
of a Late Style 147
Olivia Murphy
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viii Contents
10. ravel’s timeliness and his Many Late Styles 158
Barbara L. Kelly
11. ‘anachronism’: Michael Hamburger and the time and place
of Late Work 174
Karen Leeder
V. adorno, LateneSS, HiStory
12. notes on Beethoven’s Late Style 191
Michael Spitzer
13. The infinity of Water Lilies: on Monet’s Late paintings 209
Bente Larsen
14. Lateness and Modernity in Theodor adorno 220
Robert Spencer
afterword 235
Ben Hutchinson
Bibliography 241
Index 259
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Plates
4.1. Julia Margaret cameron, charles darwin (photographic portrait), 1868.
reproduced by kind permission of the national portrait Gallery, London.
4.2. charles darwin, Men of the day, 33, Vanity Fair, 30 September 1871.
copyright © Shropshire council, Shropshire Museums.
5.1. pablo picasso, The Shadow, 29 december 1953.
paris, Musée picasso. photo © rMn—Grand palais/Jean-Gilles Berizzi.
© Succession picasso/dacS, London 2014.
5.2. pablo picasso, Reclining Nude, 14 June 1967.
paris, Musée picasso. photo © rMn—Grand palais/Jean-Gilles Berizzi.
© Succession picasso/dacS, London 2014.
5.3. pablo picasso, Raphael and la Fornarina XII (In his Armchair, the Pope Feels Cuckolded),
2 September 1968.
paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France.
© Succession picasso/dacS, London 2014.
5.4. pablo picasso, Nude Man and Woman, 18 august 1971.
private collection/Bridgeman images.
© Succession picasso/dacS, London 2014.
5.5. pablo picasso, Bust, 21 november 1970.
private collection. © FaBa photo: Marc domage.
© Succession picasso/dacS, London 2014.
5.6. pablo picasso, Reclining Nude, 7 September 1971.
private collection, on loan to tate. photo © tate, London 2014.
© Succession picasso/dacS, London 2014.
13.1. claude Monet, Les Nymphéas: Les Deux saules (The Water Lilies: The Two Willows), oil
on canvas, 200 × 1700 cm. (detail).
rMn-Grand palais (Musée de l’orangerie, paris).
© Hervé Lewandowski.
13.2. claude Monet, Les Nymphéas: Le Matin aux saules (The Water Lilies: Morning with
Willows), oil on canvas, 200 × 1275 cm.
rMn-Grand palais (Musée de l’orangerie, paris).
© Hervé Lewandowski.
13.3. claude Monet, Les Nymphéas: Les Nuages (The Water Lilies: The Clouds), oil on canvas,
200 × 1275 cm. (detail).
rMn-Grand palais (Musée de l’orangerie, paris).
© Hervé Lewandowski.