This is the true story of the tragic and twisted life of Theodore Gericault. While immersed in an illicit affair with his Aunt, the Romantic French artist at last finds a topic to match his terrifying darkness. He becomes obsessed with it to the point of madness, whereupon he shaves his head, locks himself in his studio, and drags cadavers from the morgue to feel, taste, touch, and paint - making love to death itself."

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...