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Word of the Day
Denouement
1. The final resolution or clarification of a dramatic or narrative plot; The events following the climax of a drama or novel in which such a resolution or clarification takes place.
2. The outcome of a sequence of events; the end result.
As in: Realism in painting, at the advent of Modernism (especially abstraction), devolved in a rapid denouement. Brush strokes, line, color, and form became more important (see Monet and the Impressionists, for example) and eventually became the subject of painting, breaking through in a leap to pure abstraction with Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich.
This assumes, though, a very linear progression of art, i.e. as a straightforward evolution. This isn't the case--see Duchamp, Rauschenberg--and by the 60s the whole thing really fell apart with the Minimalists and Pop Art and a million other "-isms".
Anyway, I like the word.
Published Friday, August 26, 2005 | E-mail this post 1. The final resolution or clarification of a dramatic or narrative plot; The events following the climax of a drama or novel in which such a resolution or clarification takes place.
2. The outcome of a sequence of events; the end result.
As in: Realism in painting, at the advent of Modernism (especially abstraction), devolved in a rapid denouement. Brush strokes, line, color, and form became more important (see Monet and the Impressionists, for example) and eventually became the subject of painting, breaking through in a leap to pure abstraction with Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich.
This assumes, though, a very linear progression of art, i.e. as a straightforward evolution. This isn't the case--see Duchamp, Rauschenberg--and by the 60s the whole thing really fell apart with the Minimalists and Pop Art and a million other "-isms".
Anyway, I like the word.
About me
- Blake
- Chicago, IL, United States
Previous posts
The Paupered Chef
- The World is Our Porkchop
- An American Infant in Japan
- A Foot in Each World
- Temporarily
- Born in Kansas
- The Mixtape
- Duncan
- The Vulgate of Experience
- Distressful Tidings
- The Red Pen is the Mightiest
- Sincerely, Alexander
- Late Twenties
- Conversational Reading
- The Morning News
- Identity Theory
- The Syntax of Things
- The Beiderbecke Affair
- Inhabitat
Just to help out with the etymology, denouement comes from the old French meaning to untie, or, an undoing. It has an exhausted sound and feel, as if you're left lying on the ground like an old shoe. See you in a week you rogue.