He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it.

A work of art is never finished. It is merely abandoned.

art is never finished, only abandoned

. . . no good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art. . . . no great man ever stops working till he has reached his point of failure: that is to say, his mind is always far in advance of his powers of execution, and the latter will now and then give way in trying to follow it; besides that he will always give to the inferior portions of his work only such inferior attention as they require; and according to his greatness he becomes so accustomed to the feeling of dissatisfaction with the best he can do, that in moments of lassitude or anger with himself he will not care though the beholder be dissatisfied also. I believe there has only been one man who would not acknowledge this necessity, and strove always to reach perfection, Leonardo; the end of his vain effort being merely that he would take ten years to a picture and leave it unfinished. And therefore, if we are to have great men working at all, or less men doing their best, the work will be imperfect, however beautiful. Of human work none but what is bad can be perfect, in its own bad way.

That’s another sort of being haunted: starting something and never finishing it.

He does see Himself as the Divine Artist. Of course, He is also a blunderer — so many of His creations are botched. A good many are disasters which He then proceeds to plow back into the food chain. That is His only means of keeping His multitudinous, mediocre, and often meaningless spawnings from choking the existence of the rest. Yet, I will admit, He is dogged. He is still looking to improve His previous creations.

One thing, however, did become clear to him — why so many perfect works of art did not please him at all, why they were almost hateful and boring to him, in spite of a certain undeniable beauty. Workshops, churches, and palaces were full of these fatal works of art; he had even helped with a few himself. They were deeply disappointing because they aroused the desire for the highest and did not fulfill it. They lacked the most essential thing — mystery. That was what dreams and truly great works of art had in common: mystery.

A painting is never finished. You just stop working on it.” This idea will be familiar to anyone who has worked on software.

No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.

A painting is never finished — it simply stops in interesting places.

remaining too long in this phase, many pitfalls may arise. One is disconnection. If an artist is creating a beautiful work, and keeps endlessly crafting it beyond the need, sometimes they suddenly want to start all over. This can be because they have changed or the times have changed.

It was a net from which it seemed to me, a few hours ago, that there was no possible escape. But he had not that supreme gift of the artist, the knowledge of when to stop. He wished to improve that which was already perfect . . . and so he ruined all.

An artist obsessed with perfection is bound to dim the light of his art.

He never created a finish product. Finished products are for decadent minds. His was an evolving mechanism and the Second Foundation was the instrument of that evolution.