THE ARTIST PEERS INTO THE RUBBLE OF DEATH AND DECAY and glimpses what one less inured to such travesty cannot. He sees form, even intricate structure of great complexity, and, ultimately, a singular, transcending beauty. The believer in what is not easily read by most people senses that, in the swirl of visual chaos and stench of life’s loss, renewed life will, assuredly, come forth.
With or without mortal man’s attendance upon life’s reemergence from the grave, this process is an unending cycle: life, death, renewal. The destruction of the painter’s canvas, the writer’s essay, or the composer’s manuscript is not an untenable blow to the creator’s genius. Whether the ensuing conflagration is by literal fire or the public’s outrage over a body of work ahead of its time, the perceptive artist knows the phoenix shall arise resplendent from the ashes. Her song shall be heard.
The masterwork hidden away in the cemetery of a cellar long forgotten will be rediscovered and premiered before a now humbled and contrite audience. The artist, at last freed from earthly care and turmoil, observes amongst a once unbelieving public what he never ceased believing:
Beauty shines forth where the eyes of others have yet to fall. Beauty sings forth what their ears have yet to hear . . .