A Lost Sound

How many artists, from all disciplines, have been lost or forgotten? The reasons don’t really matter. The question is why.

Bad timing. The wrong connections. The wrong place.The destruction of their work due to natural disasters, social movements, or war.

Beyond all those possibilities, there is one that is as fortunate as it is tragic: artwork given as a gift.

I dare say that this gesture is almost always driven by love or affection. And yet, it is rarely valued for what it truly is. Many people don’t realize that when artists give a piece of their work, they are also letting go of something else — if you allow me the indulgence — a fragment of their soul.

This misunderstanding is not intentional. No one is obliged to know or feel that weight.

Csellózó Nő [Cellist Woman], Róbert Berény, 1928

But as life moves forward, relationships dissolve. Friends, family, lovers drift away, abruptly or slowly, like steam vanishing into the air. And with them, the artwork they once received is lost too — forgotten, misplaced, erased.

In the case of the Hungarian artist Róbert Berény, political persecution and war caused the loss of an unknown part of his legacy. Still, fragments of his vision survived. I won’t quote that movie that accidentally rescued one of his paintings from oblivion.

For me, one of his most striking works is “Csellózó Nő” [Cellist Woman]. It supports an aphorism I hold close: there is nothing more visual than music.

Modest Mussorgsky would agree — his Pictures at an Exhibition already said it all.

So next time you receive an artwork as a gift from an artist, treasure it.

Otherwise, it will become a lost sound.