Old Masters: Great Artists in Old Age

by Thomas Dormandy

"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 89 Kandinsky, 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 Pietà, 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 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

384 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2001

About the author

Thomas Dormandy was a retired consultant chemical pathologist and professor who worked at the University of Brunel and Whittington Hospital at the University of London. Dormandy wrote several books in addition to over three hundred scientific articles. In 1999 Dormandy published The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis. In it he combined scientific and sociological history to create his account of tuberculosis and various people's struggle with the disease primarily in the United States and Europe.

Reviews of The White Death were mixed among the critics. Muiris Houston, writing in the British Medical Journal, commented that Dormandy "has a knack of explaining technical matters" as he "weaves literature, social history, pharmacology, and epidemiology into an entertaining tale." In a Lancet review, Anne Hardy agreed that the book was "clearly written," but felt it "offers little to stimulate the interest of those already familiar with … the history of tuberculosis in general." Writing in the English Historical Review, Helen Jones thought the outline of the book was unclear. "There is no explanation at the outset of how the chapters are organized, and no sense of what will follow from chapter to chapter," Jones commented. A critic concluded in a Publishers Weekly review, however, that the "prodigious research and an anecdotal style blend to make this a fascinating foray into the history of medicine."