No matter what happens, you can always believe in the beauty of art.

I knew it would come to me, a train of thought clear and directional. I knew it and hoped it would come to me when I got on the train because travelling never fails to clear the mind, even if it does not always calm it.

And it did come to me looking at a painting in the old Gare d’Orsay, now the world famous Musée, in Paris.

From the distance, the painting showed a man leading his tribe, his face and body worn by the passage of time and its troubles; his desperation cast a long shadow. At a closer look, the destitute was Cain and the tribe behind him was his family. All marked by the curse of having to wonder the Earth, unable to live off it and unable to rest; the fear of being recognised as bearing the mark of Cain.

I examined the face of every man and woman in the painting and noticed the prevalence and consistency of fear; I pulled back to take the whole thing in again.

The room it is in is filled with Parisian light and opens into the second-floor hallway of the museum. There’s a sense of things being alright with the world when you’re in the middle of this space, even though the central painting is one of human desperation, and incomprehensible fatigue. This piece, and the beauty gathered in this museum, made me think mankind would be known for leaving something beautiful behind if our world somehow came to an apocalyptic end.

And on this note, the thought that arrested me on this trip has been that – no matter what happens, what seasons might change, and statues might fall,

You can always believe in the beauty of art.

Unmistakably,

Irina

Cain, Fernand Cormon, 1880, 400×700, oil on canvas.