Talk:Unfinished work

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Good article Unfinished work has been listed as one of the Arts good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
An entry from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on August 8, 2006.

Couldn't we call Wikipedia an "unfinished work"? - Ta bu shi da yu 22:18, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Technically yes, but can something be classed as "unfinished" if there is no possible completion? violet/riga (t) 22:45, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Good point. - Ta bu shi da yu 14:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Other unfinished works

Can someone put these edits in? (I'm using AOL and it won't allow me to.) F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Love of the Last Tycoon," as well as some unfinished poetry: Percy Bysshe Shelley's "The Triumph of Life" and Lord Byron's famous "Don Juan." Also, "The Canturybury Tales" are unfinished - Chaucer meant for each pilgrim to tell two stories: one on the way to Canturbury, another on the way home. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.188.117.10 (talk • contribs) 00:13, 9 August 2006

Dont forget Samuel Taylor Colridge's poem Kubla Khan. It could be considered an unfinished work since the original thought of the poem which was inspired by opium was interrupted by the person from Porlock. He technically finished it, but artistically it loses the appeal after the interruption. In the Porlock link, it mentions that at only 54 lines of poetry, it is incomplete.Xlegiofalco 02:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, there's some debate about the person from Porlock. Some scholars claim he's just a figment of Coleridge's imagination, a poetic device.64.194.27.58 06:44, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

What about the unfinished Disney cartoons like The Gremlins the Dali project, the Hans C. Anderson anthology, an animated Don Quixote... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.166.131.203 (talk) 02:21, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

The Beach Boys/Brian Wilson never completed the album called Smile in 1967. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.85.115.45 (talk) 21:57, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dickens' unfinished work

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the last novel by Charles Dickens, left unfinished at the time of his death. I'm not sure where and how to mention this in the text of the article. Maybe someone could do it. Tavilis 17:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

That has made a good example in the literature section - thanks. violet/riga (t) 18:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Items that may be worthy of inclusion

  • Akira Kurosawa's Oni - an unfinished script that is set to be completed by son Hisao Kurosawa and turned into a film. May be notable because it would be the only mention of an unfinished script for a film. violet/riga (t) 20:26, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] The connoisseurship of unfinished work

This is a historical development that should get at least a brief overview. It has its origins in the appreciation of sketches and sculptors' bozzetti and the careful stewardship of Michelangelo's unfinished sculptures, and its apotheosis in the nineteenth century, as a means of approaching the creative process. --Wetman 05:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I've added mention of this, thanks for the tip. violet/riga (t) 13:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Leonardo references

What a cool idea for an article. I did notice one thing: the references for the Leonardo bits (the Sforza horse and the altarpiece) are to a page which, ahem, bears heavy similarities to the Wikipedia Leonardo da Vinci article, right down to "See also"s stuck in the middle of the text. I think it may be better to use other references (having conveniently acquired one of these recently :))

  • The massive horse statue: "In 1489 Leonardo had apparently at last received the Sforza commission he most longed for: the commission to cast an immense bronze equestrian statue in honor of Ludovico's father. He drew numerous studies for it and made a full-scale clay version, but the project seems to have progressed by fits and starts for several years." and "In November 1494 Leonardo, who had been planning at last to cast the Sforza equestrian monument, saw all his work go for naught: the bronze that had been set aside for the purpose--at least 66 tons (60 metric tonnes)--was sent to Ferrara to make cannon that would support Duke Ercole d'Este against the French". Both quotes from page 73, Leonardo da Vinci: Renaissance Man by Alessandro Vezzosi, publisher Thames & Hudson, 1997, ISBN050030081X.
  • Filippino Lippi completing The Adoration of the Magi: "Highly regarded in his day, Filippino enjoyed the patronage of the Medici and fulfilled the commission for the Palazzo Vecchio altarpiece and the Adoration of the Magi altarpiece for the Monks of San Donato that had been abandoned by Leonardo sometime before 1483." From the Universal Leonardo site.

If no-one objects, I can add those in.

Telsa (talk) 11:13, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed that reference wasn't the best, and your additions are very welcome - thank you very much. violet/riga (t) 11:46, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pygmalion

Interesting though the Pygmalion stuff is, Pygmalion isn't an unfinished work, so really this paragraph belongs at derivative work, not here. Perhaps the stuff about Pluto on The Planets would be more apt? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:02, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I've moved it across and will look at Pluto (apt timing!) shortly, thanks. violet/riga (t) 13:36, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
The Planets has worked as a nice addition to the Classical music section. violet/riga (t) 14:01, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bach Fugue

The reference to using a "matrix" to "predict" the piece is misleading. After reading the related articles, it seems that the matrix is not really the usual kind of mathematical construction, and at any rate it dicates a form for the combination of themes, which are only one part of the composition. It is really just a healthy argument for a certain kind of structure to the reconstructed fugue, not a reconstruction in itself. Left unqualified it makes it look like Göncz wrote an algorithm to finish the Fugue or something like that. - Rainwarrior 16:16, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the "compromise wording" edit, this is not a "mathematical" approach. It is not that kind of matrix. Furthermore, Goncz did not discover the permutation fugue (read his article, and check the citations where he introduces the term). - Rainwarrior 16:28, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unfinished work

For this article to be perfect it must be an unfinished work... Don't you dare to finish it! `'mikka (t) 23:47, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

haha.--Gmaxwell 09:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Legal status of unfinished works

I see that "intellectual property" was put back into the article. This should be avoided because it's vague and potentially confusing. "Intellectual property" is a legal term used when referencing several wholly distinct forms of licensing which are governed under rules substantially different to real property. While it's a perfectly fine term to use in a legal context, it is really vague. It has the added problem that outside of a legal context it often causes people without legal expertise to draw a false parallel between real property and the licensing governed by IP laws. In this article this should not present a challenge: The status of unfinished works is strictly a matter of copyright law, so we are able to simply use the more specific terminology. ... The juxtaposition of 'copyright' and 'a form of intellectual property', paints an entirely different picture: that an 'unfinished work' is yet another form of "intellectual property", which doesn't make any sense at all when you know that "intellectual property" is just a classification of other legal concepts, and it certainly shouldn't be claimed in the article without a solid citation that an unfinished work is anything more than matter of copyright. --Gmaxwell 09:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good but...

I'm concerned about how the subject of the article is dealt with. Granted, the article is good, but in essence ends up being a prose-ified list of notable unfinished works with little subject matter itself, of which there might not be that much to say. It's also confusing that works that are finished are also included, such as: "Johnny Cash, aware of his failing health, made sure that he recorded the vocals for 60 more songs, with the music being completed after his death." Also seems to mix up with works that were completed, but simply unreleased. I'm still going to promote the article, but you really need figure out what it is you're discussing here. --SeizureDog 06:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry but I've got to disagree. The Cash statement is used for illustration of how a work can be unfinished by the original author but then completed after their death. violet/riga (t) 16:27, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Granted, I understand why it would be included, but it does stil seem to be contradictory to the subject. The subject of the article is the works themselves. The work is still finished, even if it's not by the original author. Get my point? --SeizureDog 10:20, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Game of Death

If The Crow deserves mention, then Game of Death definitely deserves mention as well. Despite being incomplete, it was the most accurate representation of Bruce Lee's philosophy and it's probably his most famous movie (witness the now-commonplace homage of the yellow tracksuit.) --Lode Runner 02:42, 6 April 2007 (UTC)