And the last lines barely whispered:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes he seemed to stay out of sight,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Pure velocity in full flight<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Towards a target out of sight\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The skater disappears; the mist is faint; the line, suspended. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Brevity is a rare gift, ruled by a kind of magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One word more, one word less\u2026 the spell is broken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Held in suspension by its slowly fading echo, the last syllable lingers in the air, invisible, irregular, drawing out the last sound of the phrase. The sound leaves a long trail that dissolves at the end of the rhymes. It retains what has just been voiced and prolongs its trace. And grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For being brief does not mean being sharp. Or authoritarian. The authority belongs to the author, auctor<\/em>. Once the task is done, put a final period, step back and say, \u201cThere it is, there\u2019s the work.\u201d Such is the author\u2019s authority\u200a\u2014\u200adefine, cut off, prohibit\u200a\u2014\u200asupported by a battery of written and oral laws enumerating the author\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a long time, art made use of a defensive virtuous circle: untouchable, unassailable, unrepeatable, the work was placed there once and for all. Period. The conceptualization\u200a\u2014\u200aor rather, more simply, the concept\u200a\u2014\u200aof the finished work comes from the definition of \u201cact,\u201d which, according to Aristotle, is the realization of the possibilities present in the materials. Raw wood can therefore be said to hold the possibility of a statue, and the statue, once emerged from the state of formless material, is its perfect completion, or, to be frank and pedantic to the very end, its entelechy. The possible taken to its realization, or to the end of the action that reveals its ultimate end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This well-oiled apparatus that separates material from form, possibility from entelechy, desired end from realized end, showed its limitations well before the unfinished became the bible of modern and then contemporary art. Art enthusiasts, hobbyists, and cryptologists would look for and often find notebooks, notepads, plans, drafts, and sketches that went with the \u201cfinished\u201d works. These discoveries would offer a unique pleasure: a fellowship and familiarity with the works whose uncertain outcomes the readers, listeners, and viewers could then share. Beyond the criticism of museums, in the era of doubts and \u201cifs,\u201d of relinquishing certainties and developing interest in the work in process, the world of aesthetics has shifted toward praising the unfinished work, which it paradoxically raises to the status of fully fledged work\u200a\u2014\u200athat is, \u201cfinished,\u201d museum-ready. Yet regardless of the contradictions, the latest style prevails, and the non finito<\/em> style becomes the artistic standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nonetheless, there are many ways of practising the non finito<\/em>, two of which can be easily recognized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first indicates an interruption (accident, death, loss) and leaves incomplete a work intended to be completed. Leonardo da Vinci is one example: he abandoned The<\/em> Adoration of the Magi <\/em>and several sketches that were not \u201ccoloured in.\u201d His famous sfumato plays on the ambiguity between a trans-material vision (the blurry distance as deliberately not \u201cfinished\u201d) and simple incompletion due to apathy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second asserts the non finito<\/em> as such in works that are not only realized but, more importantly, exemplary of the non finito <\/em>style. <\/em>Rodin\u2019s Balzac<\/em> bound in his robe of uncut stone and The Thinker<\/em>\u2019s hand barely emerging from the material: these works show the struggle and the triumph of form over material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Works situated in the \u201cminor\u201d style of preparatory sketches, of marginal, occasional, and travel drawings have a more nuanced relationship with the non finito<\/em>. The same is true for poetry, the natural mode of which is suspension, but also for essays, which are by definition \u201copen-ended.\u201d There is room for interpretation: the unfinished allows readers and viewers to use their imagination, gives them their own creative part to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Making their audience imagine has always been true for realized works, but with the new aesthetic standard of the unfinished, openness becomes an obligation\u200a\u2014\u200aor, at the very least, an implicit rule, an \u201caesthetic correctness\u201d all the more absolute because it is unspoken.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n One must either stop before the \u201cend\u201d or omit that end. The key is knowing where the end is and what sort of end it is; does it depend on a desired end or is it entirely uncertain? In this case, choosing where to stop is not easy; controlled randomness, like the recomposed readymade, is a perilous exercise. John Cage sometimes fails in his roll of the dice, and the games between open and closed\u200a\u2014\u200asuch as \u201cthe gallery will be closed for the duration of the exhibition\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200aend up being tiresome. All kinds of non finito<\/em> practices are used, all kinds of stops tested, launched, withdrawn, discussed. The non finito<\/em> never ends not ending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From failure\u200a\u2014\u200a\u201cI\u2019d better stop here\u201d (yet keeping a record of it [drafts, outlines] with the idea of \u201ctaking it up again\u201d one day)\u200a\u2014\u200ato the cavalier attitude of the abandoned line, (so-called) \u201cunimportant\u201d; from bizarre inventions that will never get to the end (but what is the end of an invention?)\u200a\u2014\u200awriting footnotes for a nonexistent text or using the intellectual constraints of Oulipo\u200a\u2014\u200ato the ultimate sacrifice granted to the non finito<\/em> (leaving works without title or signature, as though abandoned),2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 2 <\/a> - \u2026 or even destroyed. In Destructions<\/em>, a short, \u201cunimportant\u201d book, Eric Watier catalogues ninety-nine works that were destroyed by their authors. Eric Watier, L\u2019inventaire des destructions<\/em> (Paris: Les presses du r\u00e9el, 2012). Pierre Soulages gave a page from one of his manuscripts to Gilbert Dupuis to do whatever he wanted with it. Gilbert Dupuis, P.S. par G.D.<\/em> (Rennes: \u00c9ditions Incertain Sens \/ FRAC Bretagne \/ Les Carnets de l\u2019atelier, 2001).<\/span> the peculiarities abound. Impossible to follow all the twists and turns. All that remains is to sketch the posture expressed in the non finito<\/em>; to attempt a grammar of the brief, a lexicon, and even a philosophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The non finito<\/em>, the unfinished, is not exclusive to the visual arts, sculpture, and painting; writing also combines form and content, genre constraints, echoes of rhythms and sounds. Poetry is the quintessence of the unfinished, allowing the sounds to hover and glide like the train of a wedding dress. Postures, gestures, and poses also bear an essential non finito<\/em>; dance draws its grace from the unfamiliar suspensions of bodies released from their weight, \u201cnesting in the air.\u201d The barest smile, therefore, is a kind of reserved act, stopped before its \u201cend\u201d; it belongs to the family of \u201cbrevities,\u201d traces of actions that have not yet happened. Do we actually think that Mona Lisa is about to laugh? The hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth immediately dissuades us. We already know that she will not go all the way to the end, that she will stop at this delicate stretching of the lips, leaving the last word unsaid. No mystery here. It\u2019s simply the \u201cbrief posture\u201d of a dandy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The image we usually have of a dandy is that of a man\u200a\u2014\u200awomen are rarely or never associated with dandyism3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 3 <\/a> - See Fran\u00e7oise Coblence, Le dandysme, Obligation d\u2019incertitude<\/em> (Paris: PUF, 1998), introduction to the second edition.<\/span>\u200a\u2014\u200aimpeccably dressed in the latest style but not overdone, stylish beyond style, with nothing to add or eliminate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taste, wit, at times impertinence and insolence, a kind of \u201cuntouchability\u201d very close to \u201cGlide, mortals, but tread not heavily,\u201d the rough sketch or hint, slipperiness, evasion, and elision are attributes of the dandy posture and provide a concrete example of brevity. As a sketch of what the sketch could be, evoking the enigmatic figure of the dandy seems appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Might the obligation of uncertainty<\/em>\u200a\u2014\u200awhich is key to dandyism, according to Fran\u00e7oise Coblence\u200a\u2014\u200afind its practical application in the non finito<\/em> standard of contemporary art? Or the \u201csketch\u201d as the practical form of a philosophy of our time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The brief posture is a way of approaching life. Life as merely possible, uncertain, discontinuous, roughly sketched, not museum-ready, remote. A kind of ataraxia, an indifference to the expression of emotions, their subtle reserve, a lack of concern for the consequences\u200a\u2014\u200athe sketch or hint (drawing or gesture) is dropped\u200a\u2014\u200a\u201cnot important\u201d is its conclusion; the impersonal, the neutral, and the modest mingle with arrogance. Discontinuity is its logic, offering \u201cthe possibility of an impervious passion,\u201d4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 4 <\/a> - Nicolas Pesqu\u00e8s, La face nord de Juliau, sept<\/em> (Marseille: Andr\u00e9 Dimanche, 2010).<\/span> a wonderful expression at which, briefly and without explanation, I will stop this article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Translated from the French by Oana Avasilichioaei<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Dupuis_Image](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/93_DO07_Cauquelin_Dupuis_Image-livre1-scaled.jpg\")
Image from the book P.S. par G.D.<\/em>, Rennes, \u00c9ditions Incertain Sens \/ FRAC Bretagne \/ Les Carnets de l\u2019atelier, 2001.
Photo : \u00a9 Gilbert Dupuis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nTHE UNFINISHED STYLE<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Destiny or Decision<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Author\u200a\u2014\u200aOmitter<\/strong>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 1 <\/a> - In his book L\u2019Inachev\u00e9<\/em>,Claude Lorin coined the term \u00f4teur (from the verb \u00f4ter\u200a\u2014to remove) as a homonym of the term auteur<\/em> (author) to denote the idea of omission implicit in any aesthetic creation. (Trans.)<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On Stopping<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Dupuis_Image](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/93_DO07_Cauquelin_Dupuis_Image-livre2-scaled.jpg\")
Image from the book P.S. par G.D.<\/em>, Rennes, \u00c9ditions Incertain Sens \/ FRAC Bretagne \/ Les Carnets de l\u2019atelier, 2001.
Photo : \u00a9 Gilbert Dupuis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nTHE BRIEF POSTURE<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Why \u201cdandy\u201d?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n