Frances to Boris and Cheerskep and others... Within the sphere of an object found as art, and well beyond its rehearsal or trial, for me any state of closure implies that the work seems closed, and in being closed the work however may be settled or completed or finished, yet simultaneously the work may also be unsettled or incomplete or unfinished to varying degrees. The closure therefore may be mainly syntactic or semantic or pragmatic, or some combination of these stages. For example, it seems reasonable to claim that a certain work may be formally and syntactically settled, and also instrumentally and pragmatically finished, but remain referentially and semantically incomplete, yet be logically and semiotically closed as a pure united whole. Much of the haze about the closure for a work of art is perhaps a failure to consider the difference between syntactic abstraction and semantic abstraction. The mind of the signer likely fills in the missing parts of the sign, thereby interpreting and revising or closing it. It seems the main ways of causing eventual closure might be by subtracting from the form of the work which reduces its complexity or redundancy and increases its simplicity or order, or by dividing its form which disrupts or disturbs its density and intensity, or by adding to its form which increases its complexity or redundancy and reduces its simplicity or order. The closure would be justly deemed good and thus aesthetically ideal, but not necessarily ethically right or fair or just, nor even logically true. All the mind can do is make a good guess at what makes a good closure. No work need be fully closed to be perfect or artistic. Even a beautiful work need not be closed or fully closed to be beautiful, and it may be closed yet variously unsettled or incomplete or unfinished. All works in progress can be changed and altered and edited before or during or after their eventual closure. It is a process of realization by way of assimilation and accommodation and appropriation. The motive to keep a work open would likely be due to some irritating frustration on the part of the creator. Once closed the closure would thus be tentative.
Cheerskep partly wrote in effect... Completeness is another vague "concept" in aesthetics. There is no litmus test for "completeness". The most compelling evidence of this lies in the revisions created by great artists of every genre. When we revise, we might sometimes say we are adding something, just making it different, opting for a changed effect. Still other times, we cut passages. I hope none of us ever came to a point where we considered one of our works "perfect".
