Certain artistic works deserve to be called "summative" in honor of their simultaneously summing an artist's themes and marking a summit of the artist's achievement. A summative work occurs at the peak of its creator's powers, its scope embraces his or her most robust ambitions, and its scale can contain the artist's central concerns. It constitutes, therefore, a culmination of the artist's career. by definition such works can occur only rarely, but they stand as landmarks in the histories of all the arts, rising from culture like mountains out of clouds.

Examples of summative works in philosophy might include Plato's Republic, Augustine's City of God, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason; in literature, Dante's Divine Comedy, Anna Akhmatova's Requiem; in music, Bach's B-minor Mass, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme; in painting, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, Leonardo's "The Last Supper"; in sculpture, Phidias' Parthenon pediments, Bernini's "Ecstasy of St. Theresa"; and so on.

War is a summative work, created at the peak of Jim Leedy's distinguished career, displaying the wisdom accumulated through a lifetime of sensitive observation and generous activity, and encapsulating the preoccupations of a body of work built on restless resistance to customary parameters for media. (excerpt from exhibit brochure written by H.L. Hix, December 1999)

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