Unfinished Masterpieces
The road to sainthood is paved with unfinished work.
Completed masterpieces are cool, if that’s what you’re into.
But I like to hang around stARTists, and when you hang around stARTists, you learn that unfinished work is where it’s at.
I just got back from Barcellona, Spain, the home of the grandest of grand unfinished masterpiece: The Basilica Sagrada Família, designed by Antoni Gaudí. It’s slated for completion in 2026, more than 140 years after Gaudí began work on it. But even if work stopped tomorrow, it’s a showstopper.
Gaudí, the architect credited with transforming Barcelona, worked on this masterpiece until his death in 1926. It was not even a fourth finished when he was – honest to God – hit by a train – and died at age 73.
Gaudí isn’t the only architect of the project, but it was his stARTistic passion that imagined the biggest and pushed the project to greatness.
After his death, Gaudí’s creation languished at first, but eventually, other startists picked up the mantle, restarted, and reinvested, all because Gaudí started strong. He had left intricate, detailed designs on areas of the church he knew he might not live to complete.
The Spanish Civil War in 1936 halted work entirely, but eventually in the 1950’s, thanks to anonymous donations, work on the Sagrada Família resumed and continues to the present day –– just so I could see it on my 40th anniversary trip this summer.
You can follow the work on the Sagrada Família through its home stretch on Blog Sagrada Família (in English, Spanish and Catalon.)
Over the years, hundreds of stARTistic architects and craftspeople have brought modern techniques and materials to the task. I wonder how Gaudí imagined constructing these fancy towers without these cranes, which hadn’t been invented yet.
Gaudí is actually buried in his masterpiece…surrounded by stARTists carrying on his work. Who else has happy chills?
I unknowingly started a pilgrimage to La Sagrada Familia 20 years ago. In Barcelona for the first time, as a tourist mom of 7- and 10-year-old daughters, I learned about the cathedral from the window seat of a Hop-on-Hop-Off bus tour. I tried desperately to take a tour during our 2-day stay, but I couldn’t make the sale to my kids and husband. It got the ABC veto: “Mom, not “another boring church!”
I begged, I bribed, but I was beaten. We went to McDonalds instead.
I resolved to someday get back and get close to Sagrada Família. It finally happened this year, when we took the family to Barcelona for our 40th wedding anniversary.
I swooned. I marveled. And I took pictures through the fence of the off-limits construction areas. Look at these guys measuring tiles!!!
For me, the Sagrada Familia embodies a huge truth about creativity:
The grandest, boldest creations are begun by stARTists who KNOW they may not see them finished.
It’s not because the ideas aren’t worth finishing, or because the stARTist lacks the skills and fortitude to see them through. It’s because when we imagine big, we don’t limit ourselves to current reality.
We don’t limit ourselves to the current moment, the current science, our current knowledge, or today’s contact list. We let the idea fly.
BONUS FACT for trivia games:
When the Sagrada Familia is finished, it won’t be Gaudi’s last project! He’s still starting things from his grave.
You see, in 1922, Gaudí was asked by the Franciscan Padre Angélico Aranda, to construct a church in the Chilean city of Rancagua. Gaudí said he was booked, apologized, but sent some sketches…which more or less filled the bill.
The project didn’t get off the ground for 100 years. But today, a Chilean architect is taking up the project. It’s struggling to get traction, but when it does, it will become the first of Gaudí's works to be constructed outside of Gaudi’s home country, Spain.
And thanks in part to this project, it appears Gaudi’s going to be a Saint soon!
“Completion compulsion” Is a real thing, but the boldest artists aren’t plagued by it…they’re more interested in following the idea to the best places, even if they don’t get to celebrate the finish.
History is packed with unfinished masterpieces and work that was created by other artists. Some of my favorites:
• Geoffrey Chaucer never completed The Canterbury Tales to the extensive length that he originally intended.
• One of the most famous examples of unfinished musical compositions is Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor, or as it is more commonly known, The Unfinished Symphony.
• A guy named Alan Kay came up with the idea of a portable, personal computer in the 1960s. He didn’t get to build it, but the work he did was fuel for the development of personal computers by companies like Apple and Microsoft.
To quote my completely finished book, Start More Than You Can Finish, “If we can imagine ideas so grand we cannot possibly finish them, maybe it means we are on to something great.”
Here’s how to get more big ideas and give them their best shot:
• Write down all your big ideas, the crazier the better.
• Ask other stARTists about their projects that are still in the works – the concepts that are still on a sketchpad getting worked out, waiting for funding, or recruiting volunteers. That’s where the big ideas are.
• If it feels right, find the experts who could bring your idea to life and make the connection for some “what if” conversations.
• Consider setting the idea free. Share the idea with the universe and don’t worry so much about who gets credit. Talk and write publicly about your idea, and who knows? Maybe someone will emerge who can help you bring it to life.
And if you want to play WWGD (What would Gaudi do?), make such an audacious and expensive start that when you get hit by a train, others can take it the rest of the way.
So, all of this to say…please, if I am run down by a train before I get to finish my mile-long strand of tie-dyed fringe, will someone make sure the work continues? My vision is to get into the Guinness Book of World Records and maybe wrap Mount Rushmore.
