The final work of an artist often carries a profound emotional and cultural impact, as it culminates their artistic and personal journeys. "Last works” encapsulate an artist's legacy in the world of art and provides a sense of closure for both the audience and the artists themselves. In this article, I will be exploring how final art works across art forms serve as powerful goodbyes that can deeply resonate with and engage audiences for decades to come.

One excellent example of an iconic final work is van Gogh's "Wheatfield with Crows”. This artwork is interpreted by many as his final farewell before his tragic death. The dark skies, mysterious crows, and winding paths convey themes of despair. This analysis is potentialized when the audience is aware of the context of the painting and how it can be interpreted as his final statement, which therefore helps to immortalise van Gogh's legacy and brilliance.

In the world of music, we can take David Bowie's Blackstar as an example. His final album was released just days before his death and acted as a deliberate goodbye. His masterful lyricism, visuals, and sound were used creatively to compose a narrative about his legacy. The intention behind the album also reflects his control over his own art and many fans still view it as a parting gift.

In film, we have Hayao Miyazaki's "The Wind Rises". The legendary animator announced this as his last film and the themes of creation, passion, and loss deeply resonated with the audience as a farewell to his mastery in film. The narrative mirrors the creator's own journey, making the film a more impactful final work to audiences all over the world.

Therefore, we can observe some recurring themes in famous artists’ final works. Amidst them we can find legacy, nostalgia, and introspection. The emotional weight behind these works also often helps to captivate the audience long after the artists’ passing. Final works act as a reminder of their brilliance and innovation, creating a deep connection between artist and audience; it is almost as if the final works were personal gifts to the audience, something for people remember them by.
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As we reflect on some artists’final works and their impact and meaning, let them serve as reminders of the innate connection between creativity and humanity. Let us dive back into these works, not just to honour the artists, but to also find renewed inspiration to express our own stories and journeys.

A successful final line does not mean the end of the story, it just punctuates the end of your experience with the narrative. Some of the greatest endings are ambiguous and leave you cursing the author, allowing your mind to wonder about what happens next. Other conclusions are final and perfectly wrap up the story, but like a good dessert, you wish the experience would linger a little longer. In this article, I will explore how masterful closing statements shift and conclude the plot and the effect they have on the audience’s experience. And just a heads up, this article will contain spoilers.

When reading a book, there is no background music or meaningful visual to distract the reader from the final words printed on paper. All the pressure is on that final line to conclude the story, but it is challenging to come up with a truly memorable sentence that readers will love. An author who is a master at this is George Orwell. He concludes his dystopian book 1989, declaring the main character, Winston, “loved Big Brother”. In just four short words, Orwell crushes all the reader’s hope for resistance. The line highlights the circular nature of the novel, and how after the psychological destruction and state-sponsored abuse and terror Winston was subject to, he was now just another party member, like he was at the start.

On a completely different note, the closing line of a story can also highlight character development and a fresh start, as seen in The Truman Show. At the start of the film, after we are introduced to the concept of the Truman Show, the first line we hear Truman say to someone is “Good Morning!”, followed by “In case I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening and goodnight”. We see this line once again repeated at the end of the movie, as he leaves the set he was born into. The repetition of the line emphasises how the narrative evolved and yet Truman is still the same person, despite the change in scenario. However, this conclusion doesn’t necessarily suggest the end of the story; rather, it marks a new beginning for Truman who will now live far away from cameras, and thus far away from us, the audience.

Finally, there is also importance in closing statements of song lyrics. The song Hotel California by the Eagles follows the narrative of a man travelling through a desert in California who stopped for the night in an eerie hotel. The lyrics are a criticism of hedonistic culture and the ‘American Dream’, warning the listeners of the dangers of temptation. The closing line – “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave” – highlights the central theme of entrapment and how though it seems like you can quit this lifestyle anytime, it is impossible to escape. It is an ambiguous ending, as we don’t know what happens to the protagonist after this point. However, this final line isn’t the end to the song, as there is still a beautiful guitar solo which is over two minutes long, giving the listener enough time to ponder over the haunting conclusion.
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Whether the closing statement is hopeful or tragic, it defines our relationship with the narrative and invites us to see the story with new eyes. As the credits roll, the words fade, or the melody ends, the final line becomes our last companion, a resonating reminder that endings are often just as powerful as beginnings.

As we approach the end of the calendar year, companies, businesses, and schools enter a well-deserved break. However, some of these unfortunate institutions might be closing their doors for the final time, similar to the many doors have been closed behind them. Around 93% of the world has modernly adopted the capitalist economic system, which is greatly based upon private property and the principles of meritocracy. Though, this also means that after a certain point, no bank loans nor share sales can make up for a company’s detrimental cash balance, and they ultimately have to shut down. Usually, companies try to stay afloat by selling themselves, since they contain high-end personnel and top-notch facilities, but this no longer makes the company independent. In this article, we will be reporting some of the largest cases of business bankruptcy and disappearances in the past few decades.

When talking about bankruptcy, one of the most famous examples that comes to mind is that of Blockbuster. Blockbuster was one of the largest streaming companies throughout the 1990s. It became the most popular movie-rental brand and was internationally known for its variety of sales – from videogames to films, blockbuster had basically everything on the market. As the company entered the 2000s, they came across an offer to buy Netflix for $50 million, which investors rejected because they thought the company was reliant on abstract concepts of the future, such as fully digitalized streaming. And so, the companies surrounding Blockbuster grew in the 2000s: Apple, Netflix, and Google all adapted towards the modern settings, evolving into technologies such as DVDs. Partially, Blockbuster also evolved. They also used DVD technology, causing its store amount peak in 2004 with over 9,000 stores worldwide. However, the company failed to keep up to its record in the future. With the growing digitalization of the late 2000s and early 2010s, Blockbuster remained in its market of physical streaming, causing it to lose popularity since newer technologies were more practical. Also, the company managed to accumulate over $1 billion in debt, affecting its development and consequently being overtaken by other streaming services. Soon enough, the company’s rapid economic decline led to its file for bankruptcy in 2010. For reference, Netflix currently holds a market cap of nearly $400 billion.

Another industrial giant which surrendered to bankruptcy was Toys ‘R’ Us, historically one of the worlds largest toy-selling businesses. Throughout the late 1990s and the early 2000’s, the company saw increasing competition, as stores such as Walmart, Target, Mattel, and Hasbro were huge contenders for toy-shopping activities. So, Toys ‘R’ Us decided to partner with Amazon in 2000 to sell their toys online, with a trustworthy distributing service. Despite this, Amazon violated the terms of their contract by letting other toy-selling companies to commercialize their products on the website, leading to a 51-million-dollar prosecution by Toys ‘R’ Us, which was successful (paid in 2009). The unfortunate handling of the company led to its sale in 2005 to private investment firms for $6.6 billion using borrowed capital. The usage of the borrowed capital in the purchase made Toys ‘R’ Us’ debt shoot up from $1.86 billion to $5 billion, further complicating the companies situation. Alongside these factors, the 2000s and 2010s were the global stage for a shift in child entertainment. These years principally migrated children’s attentions from physical toys into digital entertainment, with applications such as video games or mobile games. And so, the company’s failure to adapt towards the global incentives led it to bankruptcy in 2017. Together with Blockbuster, this is another example of failure to adapt, leading to Toys 'R' Us' depreciation and ultimate failure.

Another famous case is that of RadioShack, a massive electronics distributer. The traditional company, founded in 1921, found itself doing well at the start of the 2000s. Furthermore, the company then started to suffer a lot of competition around the years of 2005-2007, as digital distributers Amazon and eBay started becoming increasingly popular for their accessibility and reduced price, whilst RadioShack only kept physical stores. The later years of the 2000’s only brought bad news to the business – they started to lack modern electronic products, and the release of the iPhone directed the global user attention away from generic brands and into the Apple mindset. As their profits lowered, the company saw their outdated products remaining on their shelves, and bad management caused the company to file for bankruptcy in March 2017.

As seen in the examples above, there is an immense amount of public pressure in any business – whether that is electronics, films, toys, or anything else. What makes modern companies thrive is their ability to adapt and to evolve, as they keep up with public demands and integrate new concepts into their businesses daily.

When the current adults were children, it was a reward to watch TV, coming home after school or right before bed - but only after finishing your homework. Nowadays, most teenagers and children can’t focus on movies or any entertainment that long. Truly, an hour and a half without distractions, notifications, or cell phones seems almost impossible to the average teenager. As many know, the average attention span has decreased significantly, from 12 in 2000 to 8.25 in 2024. This raises the questions: What are the reasons for all of this? What is so fundamentally different about these generations that caused drastic differences in our attention spans and habits? What is the effect of our shorter attention spans? And most importantly – what can we do about it?
 
The most obvious culprit for our shortened attention spans is social media. Whereas some decades ago people were exposed to longer form content, like TV shows and movies, nowadays most of our entertainment comes from short videos, usually from 10 to 60 seconds. The ease in which we can switch what we watch is also surprising. On TikTok or Instagram, if you aren’t immediately interested by some sort of content, you can simply scroll until something more interesting comes along. This has been targeted by giant tech companies to maximise profits, shifting their focuses to shorter-form content and manipulating their algorithms to keep the viewer as engaged as possible for as long as possible. Even movies have taken measures to make their content shorter and easier to digest. Not to mention the enormous changes advertising has gone through, becoming shorter and more sensationalistic. Although humans have always been intrigued by the shocking and bewildering, this has become even more necessary in recent times: for something to be slightly appealing, it must be catchy, sensationalistic, appealing to our senses, and it must grab our attention before we even think about giving it. Besides this, the insane and overwhelming amount of information which is supplied to us – on social media, in the world, in our digital lives - is also a cause of our shortened attention spans. 
 
So, what now? Our attention spans are clearly shorter, and for reasons much out of humanity’s control: it is unlikely that anyone would be willing to give up our modern forms of media or technology. And what is the problem with a short attention span anyways?
 
It is important to note that, unlike some claims, a shorter attention span does not equal a faster pace or increased productivity – in fact, it may be just the opposite. Several studies demonstrate that a shorter attention span can have negative effects for both people’s professional and personal lives. Unable to concentrate on any task for a significant amount of time, productivity is often compromised and reduced, as well as quality. In schools, learning is often affected by short attention spans, as it becomes increasingly harder for pupils to focus. Although some people argue that short attention spans can enhance your ‘filter’, since you filter out uninteresting or irrelevant information faster, it is key to consider that often the information we choose to absorb is simply catchier or more sensationalistic, and not objectively better. Additionally, less focus can bring negative consequences for our personal lives and mental health. As we are constantly bombarded with information and notifications, our brains are rewired to become more stressed and anxious. Interactions with others become less profound since it is harder to focus – a concept called Attention Fragmentation. Clearly, little good has come from our shortened attention spans. But what can we do about it?
 
There is no reason for alarm - experts and studies have already designated several different activities and habits which may help to restore or maintain your attention span. These activities range from meditation to small daily breaks. Some habits like exercise and nutritious eating also help – not only with attention spans, but with your overall health as well.
 
It is unrealistic to ask anyone to quit social media. Technology has become a vital part of modern life, rooted so deeply, it is almost impossible to remove. However, it is crucial to realise the ways in which these tools affect us and know the steps that we can take to improve our own well beings. Now, it is time to take matters into your own hands: this does not need to be the end of your attention span, and you do not need to put your life in the hands of giant tech companies and social media apps. For my closing statement, I want to say that we all have control over our own lives, and we are not puppets: we are individuals.