Word: artisticisms
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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For years after its debut in 1823 Semiramide was considered Rossini's crowning triumph. Written at fever pitch in just 33 days, it shines with bel canto flourishes-fluid melodies, runs, cadenzas, arpeggios-and a soprano role that is one of the most difficult in all opera. "Semiramide," says...
"What sort of smear is this?" gasped Nikita Khrushchev as he strolled past rows of abstract paintings in a Moscow art gallery last week. "You cannot figure out whether they were painted by human hands or daubed by a donkey's tail!" With these words, the Kremlin's...
Friction leads to abrasion, contusion to concussion, laceration to impalement, dismemberment to disembowelment. We are witness to animals in an arena; and we watch the performance of picadors, banderilleros, and matadors, complete with a climactic, mortal moment-of-truth. The play is, in fact, perhaps best analyzed in terms of...
(4) Finally, I agree with Cowan that the debate over artistic achievement and commitment is "an old one." But I reject the way he poses the problems, and therefore his resolution of it.
For the great artists, the problem is not one of serving, in Cowan's words, "with equal effectiveness as an artist and propagandist." Rather, it is one of seeking points of contact, empathy, and pedestrian, and thereby transform at the man situation--be it religious, social, political, or whatever--that...