Perfection is, broadly, a state of completeness and flawlessness.
The term "perfection" is actually used to designate a range of diverse, if often kindred, concepts. These concepts have historically been addressed in a number of discrete disciplines, notably mathematics, physics, chemistry, ethics, aesthetics, ontology and theology.

Kasparek's translation has subsequently appeared in the book: Władysław Tatarkiewicz, On perfection, Warsaw University Press, Center of Universalism, 1992, pp. 9-51. The book is a collection of papers by and about the late Professor Tatarkiewicz.

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an objective property (Petrarch, who opposed perfection to other esthetic qualities such as grace);
specific to art rather than to nature (Vasari);
a rare property (Alberti felt that not even Greek architecture had attained perfection);
a property of the whole work rather than of its parts (Alberti);
a conjunction of many values (Lodovico Dolce thought Raphael perfect because Raphael had manifold talent, as opposed to the one-sided Michelangelo);
something that required not merely talent but art, that is, skill (Vasari);
not the sole value in a work of art (Vasari differentiated perfection from grace; Renaissance Platonists such as Ficino viewed perfection as a divine attribute).
The word "perfection" has a special meaning in mathematics, where it gives a proper name to certain numbers that demonstrate uncommon properties.
In physics and chemistry, "perfection" designates a model — a conceptual construct for bodies that in reality do not precisely correspond to the model.
Elsewhere, the term "perfection" is used consistently with the word's etymology ("perfect" = "finished"). That is perfect which lacks nothing. This is how the term has been used in ontology (a perfect being), ethics (a perfect life) and medicine (perfect health). In these fields, the concept is understood variously as ideal model or as actual approximation to the model.
Also called "perfect" is that which completely achieves its purpose. Christian Wolff gave examples from biology (perfect vision) and technology (a clock that runs neither slow nor fast). Here "perfection" is less fictitious model than actual approximation to the model.
That is "perfect", which completely fulfills its functions. In social discourse, one speaks of a perfect artist, engineer or carpenter. The term is used similarly in art criticism, when speaking of perfect technique or of the perfect likeness of a portrait. Here again, "perfection" is either ideal model or approximate realization of the model.
In aesthetics and art theory, perfection is ascribed to what is fully harmonious — to what is constructed in accordance with a single principle (e.g., the Parthenon, the Odyssey).
Władysław Tatarkiewicz, O doskonałości, Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1976. An English translation by Christopher Kasparek, On Perfection, was serialized in Dialectics and Humanism: the Polish Philosophical Quarterly, vol. VI, no. 4 (autumn 1979), pp. 5-10; vol. VII, no. 1 (winter 1980), pp. 77-80; vol. VII, no. 2 (spring 1980), pp. 137-39; vol. VII, no. 3 (summer 1980), pp. 117-24; vol. VII, no. 4 (autumn 1980), pp. 145-53; vol. VIII, no. 1 (winter 1981), pp. 187-92; and vol. VIII, no. 2 (spring 1981), pp. 11-12.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is reputed to have said: "Perfection [in design] is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."