When the Soul Holds a Brush

I once saw a soul hold a brush— when my eyes first fell in love with the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Michelangelo, with the sweep of his hand, took me through space and time, into a cathedral of bliss painted upon the heavens. When I dreamed of the Mona Lisa, and tasted the silence of The Last Supper, I woke asking— Was Leonardo da Vinci a man, or the myth the gods paint into our dreams? Time unrolled its canvas, and 1889 wrapped me in its swirling night— The Starry Night. I whispered, “Is Vincent van Gogh gone, or has he only moved into the light?” In Spain, I searched for Pablo Picasso. They brought me Guernica— its cries frozen in fractured forms— and Cubism leaned close to say, “Some men are too vast for one dimension.” I wandered further, until Claude Monet stood before me. No words—only a gift: Impression, Sunrise. Its breath still warm, its light eternal. Raphael appeared, soft yet unyielding. For five centuries, he said, his art has been a pillar in the temple of beauty. When he placed Madonna in the Meadow into my hands, I wept. The Venetian school bowed low and whispered, “Titian.” Before Bacchus and Ariadne, I turned away— fearing my heart might shatter beneath such beauty. And so I called out to the gods of talent: “To all the artists— you who bend reality to your vision— you have made the impossible breathe, and turned the world’s imagination into something we can touch.”