John J. Ciofalo

"On the Twenty-fourth Hour of My Day": an Anthology of Swan Songs from Michelangelo to Mapplethorpe John J. Ciofalo

This book is a thoughtful and accessible survey of the final works of art of approximately 80 artists from the Renaissance to the present, most of them well-known masters. W. H. Auden noted that we all hope to be judged by the brilliant work or life's-effort-in-progress which death or disaster interrupted, even as we judge others by finished work. Michelangelo encapsulated this moment of awe when he purportedly told Vasari: "O, I have come to the twenty-fourth hour of my day and no project arises in my brain that hath not the figure of death and suffering graven upon it." To be sure, death is the theme of this book but by no means an obsession. Last works speak less to death per se than they do to mortality; that is, to being human, being physically and spiritually alive and aware that one's days are numbered. This is perhaps a subtext of all genuine works of art, but last works and words (featured in the book's coda) have a way of compressing it to its essence and conjuring it to the fore. The book, which contains reproductions of the last works, as well, promises to edify and enthrall both the serious devotee of the arts as well as the casual lay reader. The "Washington Post" observed: "Ciofalo does not write just for the art historian but for anyone interested in art and that is a good thing for all of us."