When Is A Painting Finished?

I paint. On my easel pictures in oil and acrylic grow like stalagmites in limestone caves. I think that painting is a magical act that transforms invisible thoughts and feelings into visible colors and forms. But I never can tell when is the work finished. After all it is always possible to change a line, a hue, or a color or even the whole composition. Painters have different opinions about this. Some say that when the artist successfully planted all the details onto the canvas the image expresses itself as a severed autonomous entity, which frees the painter from the task of continuing to paint. From then on the painting gains an independent inner life of its own. However, abandoning a work of art involves a moral decision ripened by the stiffening tension between skill, creativity and integrity. At what point does the polished image meet the artist’s expectations? And then, even if it does, no single image can express all that an artist wants to show, and consequently his muses compel him to carry on with his work and create more paintings. Hence the oeuvre of the artist evolves as a set of different images of the same single thrust and grind. Many years ago I was wandering through the countryside of southern France in Provence. Once I stopped to look at the road where the village met the meadow. A sturdy artist stood there in front of his easel painting the landscape with skilful brushstrokes on a well-stretched canvas. I stared for a while at the burgeoning picture and then asked him: “How do you know when is the composition complete? ” He gave me a piercing glance. “Well”, he said, “if you take a hammer and hit me on the head I know that the painting is finished.”