Some time back, I tried to draw up an informal list of those who have done their best work late in life. Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell published their celebrated Principia Mathematicae between 1910 and 1913. Therefore, Whitehead was about 50, and before the Principia had not produced anything of significance; Russell was just 30. Yet the cover page lists the co-authors in inverse alphabetic order, meant to emphasise that the senior author was Whitehead. He had been in charge of the mathematical part of the book but Russell was a famous high aristocrat, well known for pacifist views; he went to prison, etc. As a result, Principia Mathematicae is usually considered the work of Russell 'helped' by Whitehead, while the inverse would be more just.
Another deeply entrenched myth is that a mathematician who interrupts his work for 10 years "forgets everything", "loses his ability" and consequently is destined to disappear. Inversely, a writer or composer can stop for 10 years and come back stronger than before…
Three weeks earlier, [Paul] Simon had released a new album, “Stranger to Stranger,” with its cover taken from a portrait that Close painted of the musician a few years back. Then, the day before I saw [Chuck] Close, Simon announced that the album would be his last. “I called him up, and I said, ‘Artists don’t retire,’ ” Close told me. “I think I talked him out of it. I said: ‘Don’t deny yourself this late stage, because the late stage can be very interesting. You know everybody hated late de Kooning, but it turned out to be great stuff. Late Picasso, nobody liked it, and it turned out to be great.’ ” Close reminded Simon that Matisse was unable to continue painting late in life. “Had Matisse not done the cutouts, we would not know who he was,” Close said. “Paul said, ‘I don’t have any ideas.’ I said: ‘Well, of course you don’t have any ideas. Sitting around waiting for an idea is the worst thing you can do. All ideas come out of the work itself.’ ”
i was considering whether tarkovsky would count, because those last two films were the ones outside of russia and certainly different than the russian onesI'm mad that you mentioned most of the artists I immediately thought of, but the earlier mention of the inverse being true for music got me thinking as I definitely find that to be my thinking with music, The Grateful Dead, Dylan, and Modest Mouse for example whose earlier work I rarely stray from. But I also thought of an exception, a musician whose last album I think is his best work, our shared beloved David Berman whose last album Purple Mountains functions as his suicide note and is definitely the one where his caution is most windswept, in his lyrics about failed relationships especially. I wonder if we could then consider those whose "late style" is most lauded are those most tinged with regret? Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice comes to mind as evidence of this even if it is explicitly hopeful in the end.
there is something in this idea of soemone rallying for one last hurrah where they stare death in the face and report back from the edge of the abyss to the rest of us
absolutely. i'd also highly recommend Tempest, dylan at his most literary and violent.Need to listen to murder most foul one day, love time out of mind thru modern times. Is it really up to that standard?