Commissioned to paint a vast canvas celebrating the triumphant Battle of Lepanto, the free-spirited Galactia creates instead a breathtaking scene of war-torn carnage. In her fierce determination to stay true to herself, she alienates the authorities and faces incarceration. Her younger lover Carpeta is approached to take over and seizes the assignment for himself.
Howard Barker's Scenes from an Execution makes sixteenth-century Venice the setting for a fearless exploration of sexual politics and the timeless tension between personal ambition and moral responsibility, between the patron’s demands and the artist’s autonomy.
Art is opinion, and opinion is the source of all authority.
This edition includes a new essay by Howard Barker, entitled The Sunless Garden of the Unconsolled: Some Destinations Beyond Catastrophe
- ISBN10 1849434689
- ISBN13 9781849434683
- Publish Date 28 August 2012 (first published 24 August 2012)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Imprint Oberon Books Ltd
- Format Paperback
- Pages 80
- Language English