The Unfinished, by Maria Pianelli Blair

5/23/2026

The Unfinished

I grew up in museums. I suppose that’s one of those pretentious things ex-New Yorkers often say, but the photographs don’t lie. There’s my brother, circa ‘97, napping in a clunky stroller, wheels click-clacking against marble. There’s me, beaming next to Klimt’s Mäda Primavesi. There I am again, mimicking Winter and Summer in the Met’s European sculpture garden.

Gripping my mother’s hand, I dashed from gallery to gallery, dizzy against rows of immaculate statues, tiny under gargantuan frames. Certain pieces seemed to whisper, come closer, and when they did, I’d pluck my sketchbook from stroller’s undercarriage, plop on a bench, and squiggle childish renditions of Picassos, Manets, and Degas’ bronze ballerinas, wholly unaware of their significance, but awestruck all the same. Being surrounded by art coaxed me to create art, a frenzied, feverish feeling, a spell I couldn’t break. So I scribbled and scribbled until my palms were covered in charcoal, pages lined in frantic fingerprints.

By the time I was eight, I had taken several art classes. But by then, my confidence waned. When it came to creating, expectation never quite matched reality. My paintings were muddy; my Model Magic sculptures, wobbly. Collages were saturated by globs of Elmer’s Glue and eraser streaks soiled drawings beyond recognition. Discouraged, I revisited my museum sketchbook, hoping to rebalance. To my horror, I uncovered nothing more than broomstick arms and bulging eyes, doodles unworthy of the pride they once evoked. The message was clear: I liked art, I appreciated art, but I wasn’t necessarily good at art.

Though I stopped taking art classes, I never stopped going to museums. But the galleries, once filled with possibility, suddenly became distant. By then, the classics stopped whispering to me. They grew cold in their beauty, and for the first time, I was aware of the layers between us. The masters were just that: prodigies struck by divine intervention. Even the subjects that I had once posed beside felt out of reach. As I read their placards, I recognized them as the elite: politicians, the wealthy, their loved ones, no different than the one-percenters whose names adorned hospital wings, academic buildings, and bridges. There was no invitation to create, no invitation to pose. Girls like me were meant to be spectators and nothing more.

The Met Breuer had a brief residence in the New York museum circuit. From 2016 to 2020, it stood at Madison and East 75th, housing more modern and contemporary works than its namesake. Unbeknownst to me, its inaugural exhibition would unravel my most deep-seated conceptions and frustrations with art. Entitled, Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible, it posed a question I hadn’t considered: when is a work of art truly finished?

Spanning nearly 200 pieces, many dating back to the Renaissance, the exhibition boasted works left incomplete by their creators. Half-painted images lined the walls. Perino del Vaga’s The Holy Family with Saint John the Baptist displayed the cherub-like Christ in exquisite detail beside a spectral Blessed Mother, her body reduced to faded graphite. Klimt’s Posthumous Portrait of Ria Munk III resembled an abandoned colouring book. While some of the elaborate flowers shrouding Munk were emblazoned in gold, violet, and crimson, others remained as bare as the smudged spirals outlining her neglected frame. And, most haunting of all, was Anton Raphael Mengs’s portrait of Duchess of Huéscar. Draped in silk, the duchess was perched on an ornate gold chair against an emerald background. Delicately, she dangled a ring in one hand and a skeleton key in the other. Her face remained a flesh-colored blob.

The final room was devoted to sculpture. In Rodin’s Orpheus and Eurydice, the poet and his deceased wife stood with their arms entwined, clutching each other as the rest of their bodies faded into rocky slabs. Louise Bourgeois’ Untitled (No. 2) unveiled a stack of disembodied hands, languid, as though flopping from a tomb. Among them were busts devoid of lips and figures with half-chiseled eyes, unseeing in ceaseless limbo. Dismembered body parts, tossed aside in frustration or disinterest, littered the floor.

It was a chilling display, equal parts mesmerizing and voyeuristic. These unfinished bodies were shroud in mystery, and perhaps a hint of sorrow, forgotten by time, dismissed by their creators. And, in their wake, was an unexpected window into the artists themselves. Looking upon their orphaned creations, the greats descended from the impenetrable realm I had assigned them. Squinting back at the Duchess of Huésca, I realized that her face, like many others in the show, was not actually blank, but violently scraped away, evidence of obsessiveness, a need for perfection. I thought back to my lumpy clay and the spindly necks I repeatedly snapped and rolled out again and again.

As expected, most of the works were of nobles. But as I gazed at their unfinished faces, I wondered if the artists resented their blue-blooded patrons. True, commissions were often the lifeblood of artists, especially those who achieved fame posthumously. But, privately, did they resent immortalizing the rich, the same way a Fine Arts major bemoans corporate PowerPoints? Perhaps indignation over misappropriated talents contributed to the fate of these lost works. Perhaps, disenchanted, they decided to shelve the aristocrats’ vanity projects in favor of something more enriching, more satisfying. Selfishly, I hoped their distraction lay in the ordinary, memorializing the beauty found in the unnamed and unassuming.

I paced the exhibition, taking in new details at every lap. Other installations oozed with elitism, perpetuating a haughty air. But the Unfinished lacked that grandeur, evoking a sense of camaraderie found in an open studio or artist colony. I knew many great artists created studies before realizing their masterpieces, but to see their scraps in all their glory was satisfying. Maybe they, too, felt mocked by the Muses, prisoners to their own self-doubt.

Sometime after the exhibition, I began creating again. I filled sketchbooks with mediocre paintings. I taught myself embroidery. I signed up for pottery class, filling my cabinets with wonky bowls. I created without pretension or expectation. Visiting the Unfinished made me dwell on the unstarted. And, if the greats persevered through their imposter syndrome, so could I. Not long after, the classics began whispering to me again.

Maria Pianelli Blair

This piece was first published in Bleating Thing.

Maria Pianelli Blair is an artist and writer based in New Jersey. Her prose has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Blood+Honey; Querencia Press; Rawhead Journal; and Lost Balloon, among other publications. Her collages have been nominated for the Best of the Net anthology and published widely.

Referenced Works

Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible. Exhibition at the Met Breuer. 2016.