The imagination is to the effect as the shadow to the opaque body which causes the shadow.-Leonardo da Vinci

Blessed tears of miraculous art functioned like acid to lessen the appearance of Mona Lisa’s eyebrows, trained irises designated the difference in brush strokes, measured against Goya’s heavy hand printing the extinction of Saturn’s kin to Gertrude Stein training plain language to sing. 

Art collectors remained as prison guards and those who were trained in origami, folded dollar bills to retain the disguise of weapons of mass destruction and on national television blew them up. Postmodern practitioners tarred their mindscapes, collected the scraps of paper showering the crowded halls, fused them on canvas and presented their pieces to narrowed vantage points while declaring, “dig the collage.” 

Public broadcasting hired the original virtuoso to host a half-hour show on painting techniques. She set up a row of saucers, resplendent with puddles of paint made of the primary colors. Beside the dishes, arranged on easels, she placed blank canvases white as the flags of surrender. She grabbed an air duster canister and turned toward the camera. 

“All right folks. I’m going to blow your minds.”

Original virtuoso then sprayed the paint and it splattered onto the canvases. 

“Feel alive?”She questioned.