Retrospective

Retrospective (pronounced re-truh-spek-tiv)

(1) Directed to the past; contemplative of past situations, events etc.  Of, relating to, or contemplating the past.

(2) Affecting or influencing past things; retroactive

(3) Looking or directed backward; affecting or influencing past things; retroactive.

(4) In law, as “retrospective legislation”, retroactive statutes which can render unlawful, acts which were lawful at the time they were undertaken.

(5) An art exhibit showing an entire phase or representative examples of an artist's lifework.

(6) Any exhibition or series of showings or performances, as of painting or musical composition, representing the work of an artist or performer over all or a major part of a career.

1655-1665: A compound word, the construct being retro- + spect + -ive.  It was from the Classical Latin retrōspectus, perfect passive participle of retrōspiciō (I look back at).  The retro- prefix was from the French rétro, from the Latin retrō (backward, back, behind), from the Proto-Italic wretrō (probably taken from intrō and other similar adverbs).   It was used in loan-words (almost always from the Latin) to add the sense of “backward” (retrogress) and on this model was productive in English (eg retroactive, retrorocket etc).  Spect was from the Latin specio (to look at, perceive, or observe), from specere & spicere (to look, to see), from the Proto-Italic spekjō, from the primitive Indo-European spéḱyeti and was cognate with the Ancient Greek σκέπτομαι (sképtomai), the Avestan spasyeiti and the Sanskrit पश्यति (páśyati).  The –ive suffix was from the Anglo-Norman -if (feminine -ive), from the Latin -ivus.  Until the fourteenth century, all Middle English loanwords from the Anglo-Norman ended in -if (actif, natif, sensitif, pensif et al) and, under the influence of literary Neolatin, both languages introduced the form -ive.  Those forms that have not been replaced were subsequently changed to end in -y (hasty, from hastif, jolly, from jolif etc).  Like the Latin suffix -io (genitive -ionis), the Latin suffix -ivus was appended to the perfect passive participle to form an adjective of action.  Dating from the early fifteenth century, the antonym was prospective, from the late Middle English prospecte, from the Latin prōspectus (outlook, view), past participle of prospicere (to look forward”), the construct being pro- (before, forward) + spect.  Apart from the (often disapproving) use in legal discussion, dating from 1964, the now most familiar form is the noun “retrospective”, short for “retrospective exhibition”, first noted in 1908.  Retrospective is a noun & verb, retrospectivity & retrospectiveness are noun, retrospectively is an adverb; the noun plural is retrospectives.

Retrospective legislation

Since antiquity (with the odd interruption), a central tenant of western legal systems has been nullum crimen, nulla poema sine lege previa (There can be no crime and no punishment without a pre-existing law).  Laws described as ex post facto (after the event) are retrospective and, where found to exist (such as those created to try the surviving Nazi leadership and institutions at the Nuremberg Trials (1945-1949), are the subject of much discussion, some jurisdictions actually prohibiting retrospective laws from being applied to criminal matters but tending to be more permissive in civil matters.

Written with George III in mind, retrospectivity in law was expressly proscribed in the United States Constitution, this covering both Federal and state laws and in the United Kingdom, ex post facto laws are permitted by virtue of the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty (although when the occasion arises, judges have been known to make their disquiet known).  Australia could have proscribed retrospective laws in the constitution but the notion appears never to seriously have been discussed.  Retrospective laws in Australia are rare, the most famous being those enacted in 1980 by the Fraser government (1975-1983) to outlaw the bottom of the harbour tax evasion schemes of the 1970s.  However, parliament must make the retrospectivity explicit in both meaning and extent because, wherever ambiguity has existed, judges have tended to “read-down” the suspect clauses.

Nine paintings from the Lucian Freud Retrospective, Irish Museum of Modern Art (2016).

Top row: Frances Costelloe (2003), Box of Apples in Wales (1939) & Louisa (1998); Middle row: Queen Elizabeth II (2001), Girl in a Fur Coat (1967) & Girl in a Dark Jacket (1947); Bottom row: Woman with Eyes Closed (2002), Self- portrait-Reflection (2004) & Self portrait with Black Eye (1978).

Three of the galleries at the Lindsay Lohan Retrospective by Richard Phillips (b 1962), Gagosian Gallery, 555 West 24th Street, New York, 11 September-20 October 2012.  The curator explained the retrospective was conducted as an example of the way collaborative forms of image production can reorder the relationship of Pop Art to its subjects, the staging and format used to render them realist portraits of the place-holders of their own mediated existence.  That seemed to explain things.