“He thought that fear of death was perhaps the root of all art,
perhaps also of all things of the mind. We fear death, we shudder
at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and
again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too,
are transitory and will soon disappear. When artists create pictures
and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order
to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make
something that lasts longer than we do. Perhaps the woman after
whom the master shaped his beautiful madonna is already wilted or dead, and soon he, too, will be dead; others will live in his house
and eat at his table—but his work will still be standing a hundred
years from now, and longer. It will go on shimmering in the quiet
cloister church, unchangingly beautiful, forever smiling with the
same sad, flowering mouth.”