In Delacroix's journal I ran across something that I've been thinking about quite a bit as I'm struggling with my large paintings. It is the idea of finish in painting - what should remain open, what needs to be defined. Modernism explored the idea of process and visual openness. Matisse's scrubbed colors, Picasso's unfinished masterpiece Demoiselle, Cezanne's unfinished strokes and lines, or later, Dekooning's unfinished paintings. The Modern painting was all about remaining open - leaving room for visual participation in the process of forming the image. Postmodern painting takes openness even further by pushing meaning out of the painting all together. Images, tied to lens and programming, are "finished". Yet the images are emptied of meaning in the attempt at creating "context". This is usually done through a disparate collaging of visual styles or historical precedent - Murakami's recent Japanese caricatures on gold and silver leaf or Hirst's diamond skull. It comes from the idea that the plethora of images proliferating our culture can be used to subvert meaning - images are used as stylistic resources. There are no privileged ideas - everything is equal and it's all in how the work comes to be read. Postmodernism relies heavily on this outside context - where the work is shown and who looks at it in order to cultivate meaning - theoretical openness in the work creates a desire for meaning. Thus meaning is cultivated in the viewer through his experience of the work - pure subjective inference outside of any artist's intent. It is the old saw - "...what do you see in the work?" The artist relinquishes meaning or understanding through this idea of openness - emptying meaning from the visual enterprise. It is postmodernism's triumph that the "unfinished" has moved beyond pictorial visual cues in the work to rest in the theoretical ones outside of the work - hyper-conceptualization.

Delacroix Journal Entry April 20 1853

"...Came home with Gryzmala; we talked of Chopin. He said that Chopin’s improvisations were far more daring than his finished compositions. They probably take the place of the sketch for a picture compared with the finished work. No! One does not spoil a painting by finishing! Perhaps theme may be less scope for imagination once the work has been sketched out. You receive a different impression from a building under construction where the details are not yet shown, than from the same building when it has received its full complement of ornamentation and finish. It is the same with ruins, which appear all the more impressive because of the missing portions; their details are worn away or defaced and, as with buildings under construction, you see only rudiments and vague suggestions of mouldings and ornamentation. A finished building encloses the imagination within a circle and prevents it from straying beyond its limits. Perhaps the only reason why the sketch for a work gives so much pleasure is that each beholder can finish it as he chooses. Artists gifted with very strong feeling, when they consider and admire even a great work, are apt to criticize it not for the faults it actually possesses, but for the way in which it differs from their own feelings. When Correggio made is famous remark: ‘Anch’ io son pittore’, he meant, ‘This is a fine painting, but I should have put something into it that is not here.’ Thus an artist does not spoil a picture by finishing it, but when he abandons the vagueness of the sketch he reveals his personality more fully, thereby displaying the full scope of his talent, but also its limitations."

By finishing we reveal our "...personality more fully, thereby displaying the full scope of [our] talent, but also its limitations." This is tough stuff. How many of us are willing to let it all out there? And I mean all of it. I'm not talking about making product, but about making art. Jeff Koons spins it out there for all to see, but in order to do so he has made his thought seem as shallow as his work. He is fully known because there's nothing further to know. It is the same for the rest of the businesses that manufacture art for the fairs, biennials and galleries. I am also talking about the "artistes" that run rampant through this current art world as well - the Longhi's of our day. You know the types - ultra sensitive folk that quiver and quake in order to create charming and ultimately unchallenging work - no that bull won't do either. Matisse fought for recognition and poured his life into his art - he is revealed in every painting and he lived tough. Picasso knew how to be an artist, but also how to be a businessman - spinning out product after working the harder visual material. The ABEX artists knew how to push against history and reveal themselves. There was always the struggle against history instead of following history. It is what propelled art forward and made great artists. Yes we have come to prefer the openness, but when did we stop revealing ourselves, when did we forget to push?

What is the idea of finish in painting today? What would a "finished" work look like? How do we express the full scope of our talent without being washed into the POMO wastebin of subjectivity and context? These are all tough questions that are not being asked by our generation. We accept the commerce, the materiality of history and the outsourcing of visual responsibility. Would Delacroix have sent out his paintings to be worked on by crews of technicians? Would he be as ready as so many of the artists we see today to accept theoretical and visual standards handed down from his contemporaries and near contemporaries? - I doubt it. We've discussed the POMO failings in depth already so I won't go over them again. But as I work in the studio and look at my work I understand that my processes are not the same as Delacroix's, nor are they the same as the Moderns or ABEXers or POMO's. It is a hard place to be, and I will have to reveal myself - both good and bad - in order to survive. I am not making product - I want something more from my work and it wants a lot more from me. If I succeed or fail doesn't matter much - I am happy for the fight. Either way - it's nice to know that according to Eugene I will not be "spoiling" my picture when I "finish".