Pastiche

[Dr. Goodword]

• pastiche •

Pronunciation: pæs-tish • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. A work of art in an obvious mixture of styles or materials of other works, a collage. 2. A work of art composed of a medley of pieces from various sources, a medley.

Notes: A pastiche may be a collage if it is a picture and a medley if it is piece of music. Someone who imitates the styles of others is a pasticheur. You may use the noun itself as a verb, to pastiche, if you wish, as 'His music pastiches that of George Shearing, Bill Evans, and Dave Grusin'.

In Play: Today's Good Word may refer to a mixture of musical style: "The dances were all a pastiche of Fijian, Samoan, and Tongan motions, the dancers dressed in a pastiche of the same cultures." It may also be used metaphorically in reference to any organized arrangement of pieces that don't fit: "The vehicle Rusty Carr drove was a pastiche of parts from all the cars up on cinder blocks in his back yard."

Word History: Here is another word English borrowed from French, which simply modified Italian pasticcio "medley, pastry cake". We may presume it was inherited from Vulgar Latin pasticium "composed of paste", a derivative of Late Latin pasta "paste, pastry, cake". Latin borrowed this word from ancient Greek pasta "barley-porridge", the neuter plural of pastos "sprinkled, salted" from passein "to sprinkle". In French the Latin word lost the S to become pâte and from the Old French pasticier "to make pastry", patisserie. (Let's now pause to thank Jackie Strauss for the pastiche of Good Words like today's she has submitted over the past years.)

[Perry Lassiter]

Seems like I see this word used as a synonym for a satire or "send-up," of a particular writer, but not necessarily a collection of writers, unless some of them could mean a spoof of a small genre. This is a light hearted imitation of a style, such as Thurber and his ilk turned out by the dozen. Could a mockery of a style have shrunk to farcical imitation of a particular?

[George Kovac]

I encounter "pastiche" in numerous contexts, not limited to satire, or the written word. For example, a work of architecture may be described as a “pastiche” if it includes elements borrowed from several styles—such as Philip Johnson’s AT&T building in NYC with its Chippendale top, conventional midsection and Renaissance-inspired arches at its base.

"Pastiche" is one of those words, no matter how carefully and neutrally the lexicographer crafts the definition, which rings pejorative in usage, at least to my ears.

Like "farrago", "mish-mash ", "mélange", "potpourri", "hodgepodge", or "mash-up", the word "pastiche" does not indicate critical acclaim. It signals an opinion that the product is incoherent, amateur, trite, or intellectually undisciplined.

It is hard to find a positive word for this kind of product--"medley" is not pejorative, but it rings of "derivative", or of crass pandering to familiar tastes or sentimentality.

The only positive word I could think of is "synthesis." But even then, that word seems dismissive of creativity in the resultant product.

Odd that we don't have a positive word for this kind of work, since it can be so important and creative. In the "Art of Fiction" the late John Gardner argued that in the arts--particularly literature--creative breakthroughs occur when an artist, author or composer mixes genres, crosses over from one style to another and creates a new type of work, surprising and delighting us, and expanding our insight by combining elements we did not previously think of as belonging together.

Does anyone have a word for this process that has a positive connotation?

[Perry Lassiter]

I'm learning a bunch from this word. I had not picked up on its actual meaning, but the one I described above. It has no negative connotations in my mind. In pop and country music, movement either way is called crossover. That should work in the other fields. I expect the negativity comes when the crossover is done poorly. An example might be someone dabbling in "modern" architecture inappropriately adding Georgian columns. Right now fifteen miles away there is a new courthouse, sort of colonial brick box, with perhaps six white columns standing unattached, like Stonehenge, which only makes me laugh.

[Philip Hudson]

I love the example "The vehicle Rusty Carr drove was a pastiche of parts from all the cars up on cinder blocks in his back yard." It is widely practiced with cars and with many other things in the hinterlands. If you don't have two old sofas and four worn out washing machines on you front porch, then where do you keep them? The actual word has not reached here yet.

[Slava]

I'd say using a positive modifier would be sufficient to make this a clearly positive word.

English is a marvelous and fascinating pastiche of languages and roots from all over the world and over history.

[damoge]

I don't think of pastiche as negative. I rely on context and modifiers.

Would you feel more comfortable with "collage"? or does that ring too much of layers and not necessarily mixes...