Dead or Alive

December 30, 2024


A painting, in its most raw and unfinished form, is a work teeming with potential, energy, and danger. But once completed—once the final brushstroke is made—it becomes a "finished" work, a dead work, frozen in time. The idea that a finished painting is “killed” while an unfinished one remains "alive" is both a philosophical and artistic reflection on the nature of creation itself.

Allure of the Unfinished

There’s something undeniably alive about an unfinished painting. It hums with energy, holding the promise of what it could become. It is in a state of flux, filled with uncertainty, change, and the tension between what is and what could be. When you look at an unfinished painting, you are not simply seeing colors and forms on a canvas; you are seeing a living, breathing entity, in the process of becoming.

In a sense, this unfinished state is dangerous. There is something precarious about it. The brushstrokes are raw, bold, and imperfect, and the painting holds the weight of possibility. The viewer's imagination fills in the blanks, projecting onto it an endless array of potential outcomes. The work is not yet confined by definition; it is open-ended, in constant motion. And this unfinished quality often makes the viewer feel as though they are on the verge of something great, something that could shift into being at any moment. It's as though the painting could, with just one more stroke, complete itself—or shatter into a new, uncharted realm.

The danger of the unfinished painting lies not only in its unformed state but in its refusal to be categorized, its refusal to be “finished.” This is why some artists deliberately leave their works incomplete. Think of Leonardo da Vinci's The Adoration of the Magi, left in a perpetual state of flux, or the famous works of Vincent van Gogh, where brushstrokes vibrate with emotion, often seeming just one step away from either a completion or a complete breakdown. These unfinished works make us ask: What would they become if given more time? What would they say if the artist hadn’t stepped away? The viewer is left to confront the rawness of the moment, the space where anything could happen.

Finality of the Finished Work

In contrast, the finished painting is an object of finality. The moment the artist sets down their brush and declares the work complete, something changes. The painting shifts from a dynamic, evolving entity into an object—frozen, categorized, and permanent. It is no longer alive in the same way; it no longer holds the energy of the creative process. It has been “killed,” at least in the sense that it no longer retains the dangerous, dynamic potential of becoming.

This is not to say that finished works lack value or meaning—far from it. A completed work has its own integrity, its own final statement. But it’s a statement that’s been closed off, something that no longer invites the viewer into a process of discovery. There is no longer room for change, for the danger of the unknown. The work is finished. It is dead in the sense that it no longer evolves; it has become a monument to its creator's vision, a closed narrative. It is a fixed object in time, forever preserved in the state it was last touched by the artist.

Art’s Relationship with Time: Birth and Death

The metaphor of a painting being “alive” or “dead” also speaks to the larger relationship between art and time. The artist breathes life into a work, and during the creative process, the work is constantly changing. Like a living being, it is subject to growth, conflict, and transformation. The moment it is completed, however, it is removed from the flow of time—it no longer lives through the artist's touch, and it ceases to evolve.

Yet, paradoxically, a finished painting can still resonate, communicate, and provoke—it can remain "alive" in the minds and hearts of its audience. But this life is not the same as the artist’s dynamic relationship with the canvas. It is a life of memory, of response, of interpretation. It is no longer "alive" in the artist's sense but takes on a new kind of vitality in the viewer’s imagination.

Between Life and Death in Art

What makes art so compelling is its tension between life and death, between the unfinished and the finished. The act of creating a painting is itself a dance with mortality—the artist is constantly wrestling with the limits of time, with the knowledge that the work is never truly “finished.” The artist's touch is never permanent, and each brushstroke is a step closer to completion, a step closer to death. But it is precisely this tension—this awareness of the unfinished—that makes art so powerful.

Perhaps this is why some of the most celebrated works in history are those that were never completed. Michelangelo’s unfinished statues—figures half-formed, caught in the process of emerging from the stone—seem to express something eternal, something beyond the confines of time. They seem alive, struggling to emerge, struggling to be more than what they are. And in their unfinished state, they compel us to confront our own struggle with life, with creation, with our own sense of being and becoming.

Art Is in the Process

The idea of a painting being "alive" or "dead" is not just about its physical state but about how we perceive and engage with it. An unfinished work is alive because it invites participation. It demands something of the viewer, forcing them to complete it with their own imagination. A finished work, while no less valuable, is a closed chapter—a testament to a moment in time when creation ceased.

The real vitality of art lies not in the finality of its completion but in the process—the endless cycle of creation, destruction, and recreation. The unfinished work reminds us that life is never static, that everything is in a constant state of flux. And while a finished painting may be “dead” in one sense, it remains alive in another, living on in the conversations it sparks, the emotions it evokes, and the stories it continues to tell long after the final stroke.