"What posthumous fate lies in the unfinished work of an artist?"

"What posthumous fate lies in the unfinished work of an artist?"

Dr Abe V Rotor

1. Your unfinished work could be your masterpiece!

Remember those things you thought were "unfinished" could be your greatest treasures, and who knows - people some day will remember you because of them. 

Don't discard your unfinished work, say a painting, novel, sculpture. Try to get back to it. It could be your masterpiece. Maybe you were not able to complete it because you gave way to the priorities of living, or finding new interests, challenges, assignments, or simply you lost steam, so to speak. Or you say you've grown too old to complete it.

Take the case of the mysterious unfinished human figures at the University of the Philippines at Diliman, QC. Do they mean anything but abandonment? To me it's not. So with my daughter Anna and son Leo Carlo who took these photographs.

These unfinished life size human figures occupy the “less trodden” front yard of the UP College of Fine Arts in Diliman, QC. The artists may have in mind the portrayal of man more as a Homo faber - man the worker or maker rather than his attribute as the reasoning man (Homo sapiens) - and much less the playing man - Homo ludens. Here the figures appear to be workers of the land. In fact one resembles the Man with a Hoe by Markham. Another appears to be carrying an imaginary heavy load. Photos by Anna Christina R Rotor And Leo Carlo R Rotor

What is puzzling however, is the representation of peaceful death. While the living struggle, the dead lies in true rest, cradled by the earth. Which then changes the scenario if all the figures were to be directed to a solemn and sorrowful occasion of burying a departed member in thin ceremonious atmosphere. It now expresses the highest attribute of man - Homo spiritus - the praying man who places completely his fate to a Higher Being. The viewer now turns his thoughts to grief and compassion, and the scene is no longer the farm but a sacred ground. The imagined heavy load is a  burden of the heart, the figures are bent not by the burden of work but by the loss of a loved one.

Art is like that. It is like poetry, the meaning is hidden "between the lines." Like impressions in Impressionism; points in Pointillism. Or masked symbols in Pablo Picasso's plaza mural - Guernica. Unfinished works of masters often become their masterpieces like the Unfinished Symphony of Beethoven, and Mozart's Requiem, his last composition commissioned by a mysterious person. Mozart died before finishing it, and Requiem became his own. Auguste Renoir repeatedly painted his favorite Nymphaea Waterlilies until darkness took over his failing sight - so with the painting's clarity. Though half finished it is Renoir's final signature.

Venus de Milo is more beautiful with her arms missing. And for this, the best artists in the world gave up their attempt to supply her arms.

The mystery of the human figures of UP Diliman emanates from the anonymity of their theme that stands at the crossroad of human imagination searching for the meaning of life, exacerbated by their unfinished, and apparent abandoned state.

So what have you discovered about yourself by going back to those unfinished works? Share with us your experience. Remember those things you abandoned could be your greatest treasures, and who knows - people some day will remember you because of them.

2. Art is like poetry, the meaning is hidden "between the lines."

Art is like poetry, the meaning is hidden "between the lines." Like impressions in Impressionism; points in Pointillism. Or masked symbols in Pablo Picasso's plaza mural - Guernica. Unfinished works of masters often become their masterpieces like the Unfinished Symphony of Beethoven, and Mozart's Requiem, his last composition commissioned by a mysterious person. Mozart died before finishing it, and Requiem became his own. Claude Monet repeatedly painted his favorite Nymphaea Waterlilies until darkness took over his failing sight - so with the painting's clarity. Though half finished it is Monet's final signature. 

Auguste Renoir was one of the co-founders of Impressionism. Renoir's masterpieces like The Dancer (PHOTO) appears to be "unfinished" because of its sketchy appearance. Yet this gives an effect and motion to the figure. So with a number of Renoir's works. One reason for this impression is because Renoir's passion to paint did not diminish in old age. Art critics say, "He was so passionate about painting that he even continued when he was old and suffering from severe arthritis. Renoir then painted with the brush tied to his wrists."

  

 Venus de Milo is more beautiful with her arms missing. And for this, the best artists in the world gave up their attempt to supply her arms.

So what have you discovered about yourself by going back to those unfinished works? Share with us your experience. Remember those things you abandoned could be your greatest treasures, and who knows - people some day will remember you because of them. 

 

Claude Monet’s Nymphaea Waterlilies appear unthoroughly done. Monet was then fast losing sight in old age when he painted these murals. These however are highly treasured works of this pioneer in impressionism, are now exhibited in a museum in Paris.

3. Your unfinished work might turn out your masterpiece

If you have any unfinished work of art - say a painting, literary manuscript -  which you may have put aside, re-visit it.  Who knows it might turn out to be your masterpiece.

Art leaves something to the viewer that completes it even if it is unfinished. Why Venus de Milo doesn't have arms! She might have had before, so contemporary artists tried to reconstruct the statue. They failed at the end and unanimously agreed Venus is most beautiful as she is. How beautiful she is with imagined arms looming in the fertile mind of the viewer. 

Ernest Hemingway couldn't finish his novel, The Old Man and the Sea. After many attempts, a wastepaper basket by his side, he succeeded in ending up the story the way he intended to be. And his readers are delighted. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize, and Hemingway himself the Nobel Award.

Beethoven's Unfinished Symphony is among the best examples of a masterpiece that was never finished yet became the composer's signature. 

So with Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia cathedral (photo). Gaudí devoted his last years to the project, and at the time of his death at age 73 in 1926, less than a quarter of the project was complete. Fortunately after the architect's death, construction resumed and the cathedral became a landmark in Barcelona, Spain . 

Adoration of the Magi, an unfinished painting by Leonardo da Vinci remains one of the best Renaissance paintings. Similarly here are other examples. 

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Kubla Khan 
• Sir Edward Elgar was composing a Symphony No. 3 at the time of his death and left 130 pages of sketches. 
• Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind .           He
•  left behind numerous unfinished films.
• Hendrix’s First Rays of the New Rising Sun 
• J. S. Bach's The Art of Fugue breaks off abruptly, and was completed by other composers. 
• Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 7 and 10 was completed by Brian Newbould 
• Mark Twain took 20 years to write three versions of The Mysterious Stranger but he did not finish any of them. 

Who really decides when a work of art is finished? The initial reaction is, "It is the artist." Many viewers may not agree. Perhaps because the preconceived idea did not get across. Or the signature doesn't ring a bell.

Now this is the bias. There's a saying, "the singer and not the song." Many people look at a Picasso, Picasso; Amorsolo as Amorsolo. It's the Imprimatur that counts. So whether finished or not, a work of art may be regarded beautiful. Thus it is not only in the eyes of the beholder.

Unfinished works may not just gather dusts, or forgotten for nought, their fate lies in the artist's favor, or that of artists that take over its completion, often putting in their own variation. Franz Kafka's unfinished writings were released after his death despite his wishes for them to be destroyed.

So if you have any unfinished work of art - say a painting, literary manuscript -  which you may have put aside, re-visit it.  Who knows it might turn out to be your masterpiece.

 

Michelangelo's Prisoners, or Slaves, were begun for the tomb of Pope Julius II but never finished. In its entirety – including the Dying and Rebellious Slaves in the Louvre and the statue of Moses on the final, reduced version of the tomb eventually erected in Rome – this constitutes the greatest unfinished masterpiece in the world. Yet Michelangelo did not leave things unfinished out of laziness. It is an aesthetic choice. The tragic power of these prisoners as they struggle to emerge out of raw stone is an expression of the human condition that equals Shakespeare's Hamlet. (Internet)

Auguste Rodin was more interested in rough, blemished representations of the human body than idealized forms. He painstakingly immersed himself in his projects, sometimes spending years in order to develop a work of art, regardless of the public’s response. His sculpture was often judged harshly by the public and by critics. Rodin had a penchant for reusing old molds and reworking his earlier ideas.He would continue to alter an existing form until it developed a new identity and a new narrative. Rodin transformed a major work, a bronze sculpture—over the course of two decades—and titled it, The Walking Man.(Internet)

Benjamin West's painting of the delegates to the Treaty of Paris which ended the American Revolutionary War. Out of shame for their country's defeat, the British delegates refused to pose and so the portrait was never finished. St. Thomas Aquinas stopped work on his Summa Theologiae in 1273 after a mystical experience. (Internet) 

4. Orphaned Icons

by Sculptor Francisco "Boy" Peralta

"What posthumous fate lies in the unfinished work of an artist?" - avrotor

4A. The Worker

                               

                            The Worker 

The artist comes to rest, 

his works unfinished, 

his dreams unfulfilled; 

life, how short it is to the gifted,  

the future his present;

and who would look beyond

with him but prophets?

Or Markham who saw in beauty

injustice in The Man with a Hoe,

of Millet's romantic scenery?

There is no answer, the artist is dead;

he lives on with these unresolved;

time and events shall tell

as his masterpiece crumbles

to dust, to oblivion. 

San Vicente is famous for sculpture, producing important works that decorate many churches and homes today, here and abroad. The town is dubbed the Little Florence, and is acclaimed to be the counterpart of Paete in Laguna and Betis in Pampanga. This article is a tribute to the sculptors of the town, and to those whose memory we their townmates shall remain forever proud and grateful. 

4B. Man with a Hammer

Sculptor Francisco "Boy" Peralta

Man with a Hammer, life size in stone by a local sculptor, 
the late Francisco "Boy" Peralta. San Vicente, Ilocos Sur   

Here he stands, sun and rain, season in and out, alone,

    a sledge hammer hangs on his brawn, frozen in time;

so blank his stare toward his subject, lifeless as stone,

  immortality defined in neglect in mournful sublime.  

And yet seeks man the mystery of power cum divine,

    a god from Mount Olympus, on Apollo to the moon;  

yet Man with a Hoe, Markham's hero a lowliest  kind, 

  and Rodin's thinking man turned prophet of doom. 

Mortal, shortcut to man's lofty dreams and often greed,

 a hammer falling from the sky striking the hardest;

not once, but many times 'til the die is cast to the grid,  

in Medusa's gaze, freezing man perhaps in his best. 

And bridging the gap of thoughts and generations,

in suspended animation of true story or legend;

yet live the man with a hammer for whatever reasons,

                               and souls seeking immortality at the final bend.~ 

 

4C. The Potter

  

The Potter, life size in stone by a local sculptor, 
the late Francisco "Boy" Peralta. San Vicente, Ilocos Sur   

The Potter 

The elements come and go,

sun and rain through the years;

wonder the model once young as clay

with a consequence to pay.   

We are potters too, of the mind,

characters of the young in our care;

time is kind in idleness, we say, 

and rebels against the clay. ~                                                    

4D. Restored The Potter

Apo Baket' -  Keeper of Time-Honored Tradition and Values*

Life size concrete icon of an old woman, keeper of time-honored traditional values, enshrined at the Living with Nature Center under the care of the author. San Vicente, Ilocos Sur.  Sculptured by Francisco "Boy" Peralta, and restored by Bhoy Adora.  

She is mother, grandmother, guardian, of countless children through generations throughout the world, teaching them the true values of growing up, to adapt to the ever changing environment, save those values that must not change.

She leads the community, church, school, in fact all facets of life, side by side with men, and behind their struggle, in the likes of Tandang Sora, Fe del Mundo, Gabriella Silang, Leona Florentino, along with Florence Nightingale, Saint Mother Teresa. 

She is the ever-loving mother in the Pieta, symbol of universal love and compassion, dedication, and asceticism on the highest level; the ever-loving partner in marital life vowed "till death do us part," core of the family as the primordial social institution. 

She is the widow of honored men in the battlefield, or by circumstances beyond her control, accepting such fate and bravely taking over the responsibility not only for her own sake, but for those under her care, and society itself.  

She keeps the kitchen of old alive and invitingly delectable as ever - pinakbet, kare-kare, ginatan, sinigang, bulalo, la-ing, papaitan, kilawin, surpassing fast foods, extravagantly labelled foods, culinary preparations lavishly advertised.  

She is the storyteller Lola Basyang, pen name of Severino Reyes, around her, children gather to listen to folktales and make-believe stories, including versions of stories from the Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Anderson, and Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. 

She is the mother or grandmother of overseas workers who leave behind their families to secure a better socio-economic status of their families; and under her care their children grow up properly in spite of the absence of father and mother.

She is the yaya, the traditional nanny, who other than taking care of the nursery and growing children, does varied household chores - cooking, cleaning, laundry, errand, marketing, making housekeeping light on the part of parents and children as well. 

She is the weaver of abel (Ilocano blanket), and many household items made of pandan, buri, and tikiw; maker of the finest dress and formal wears made of pina; maker of fine pottery and china wares; and keeper of the old aparador of antiques and memoirs. 

She is the grandmother in Johanna Spyri's novel Heidi; Madame Curie, greatest woman scientist; Mary Shelly, author of Frankenstein, world's scariest bedtime story; Florence Nightingale, the Lady with a Lamp who kept vigil on the sick in the wee hours.   

She is Basang, my auntie-yaya from the time my mother died when I was only two until I went to Manila for college; Lola Usta who painstakingly  applied all local remedies to revive me born a blue baby amidst extreme danger of  WW II breaking out.  

She is the First Lady of a president of state; queen beside a king, or head of state; saint of the church; on the other hand, victim at the gallows; maligned old woman,  the butt of jokes and unkind stories, yet she stands her ground brave and perseverant as the world goes round.  ~

 

Restoration by local sculptor, Bhoy Adora, of the icon originally an unfinished work of the late Francisco "Boy" Peralta, also a native of San Vicente, Ilocos Sur. 

*In celebration of International Women's Day March 8, 2024.  Theme: Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress. 

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday