declining opus

[Bushwhacker]

How is properly said in English an opus, any kind of art work (movie, paintings...) reflecting it is one of the last of its style or one of the last of its artist? In Spanish it is used "crepuscular" in this sense, but I don't know if "crepuscular" (from twilight) is also used in English meaning those last artistic tail flaps?

Thank You for your help

 

[Tdol]

Crepuscular wouldn't give me that meaning- maybe you could use a phrase like the dying days for an artistic movement. For an individual, it's just their last/final work IMO.

 

[Bushwhacker]

Crepuscular wouldn't give me that meaning- maybe you could use a phrase like the dying days for an artistic movement. For an individual, it's just their last/final work IMO.

Thank You, and if the work is the next to last one?

 

[SoothingDave]

Not a teacher.

"Swan song" is the term used for the final and greatest work of an artist.

 

[Rover_KE]

...and if the work is the next to last one?

We call that the penultimate.

Rover

 

[birdeen's call]

Do you have an adjective in English that could be used to mean "related to or made in the final part of some era/period/century or somebody's life"? We have such an adjective in Polish but dictionaries I've looked it up in translate it into "decadent" which I think is wrong. As far as I know "decadent" always has a pejorative meaning and the Polish word doesn't have to have it.

 

[Rover_KE]

I don't think we have, but we are happy to borrow the French term fin de siecle (I can't do the grave accent), which means more than end of the (19th) century. It can also refer to the end of an era.

Fin de siècle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rover

 

[BobK]

Do you have an adjective in English that could be used to mean "related to or made in the final part of some era/period/century or somebody's life"? We have such an adjective in Polish but dictionaries I've looked it up in translate it into "decadent" which I think is wrong. As far as I know "decadent" always has a pejorative meaning and the Polish word doesn't have to have it.

We don't (to my knowledge), but artistic and literary commentators often use the term 'middle years': '... typical of Thackeray in his middle years'.

As to 'crepuscular', we don't commonly use that word as Tdol said, but Bushwacker actually used the word we do use: 'twilight' (as a adjective - example: 'in his twilight years') To be dismissive of an artist's work towards the end of his life, you can use the phrase 'in his dotage' - if someone produces a work 'in his dotage' the implication is that it's not very good.

b

 

[birdeen's call]

Does the expression "his twilight years" convey the meaning of deterioration?

 

[BobK]

No - or at least, not in his printed output! (His eyesight's probably not as good as it was!)

b