The Perfect
— Cornelis de Bondt
Question: I would call an excellent and exemplary work a “masterpiece,” which cannot be improved; does that mean it is perfect?
Answer: No. Excellence should not be confused with perfection. The perfect is untouchable and unsuitable for action because any action would by definition destroy the perfection. The perfect is objectwise; therefore, it is toxic. Excellence, on the other hand, invites an act and can only occur within that act; it is therefore subjectwise. The subjectwise is never perfect; it is always in progress. But that does not mean it can be improved, because that would imply that the work was born out of unfreedom.1)
A perfect artwork would be a work that was fully determined in advance. The artistic process could only lead to one work: that one perfect work. But then the work would not have been born out of freedom. It was all predetermined.
The interesting thing is that the work can articulate the suggestion of being perfect. When we hear the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, we think it could only have been composed in that way, even though Beethoven could have made different choices. That suggestion of perfection is generated by our imagination. That is an articulation of excellence. Both Kant and Burke point out that beauty is imperfect, and must be so. This imperfection is what allows the beautiful to work through our imagination.2)
I used the word ‘toxic’ above, because something that can only exist in one way was created out of unfreedom. There were no choices, thus no freedom; it was completely rigid and therefore dead. The Sirens were deadly with their perfect singing.
— Cornelis de Bondt, Loosduinen, March 17, 2024