The only authentic message an artist conveys to the public is an invitation to plunge into the realm of his profoundly personal sense of existence. Art is non-action through creation, and the true artist, in inviting us to share the feast of his lived experience, always grants us complete freedom of feeling and interpretation. This gift belongs only to the one who shapes perfect form, for perfection of form absorbs the entire abyss of content, the boundless infinity of meanings that each of us discovers within the author’s work. And it is precisely the unconditional nature of this freedom that makes the artist a cult figure for society. A cult artist was, and forever will remain, the great David Lynch.

 At one time, I was drawn into Lynch’s element by his figuratively unique, mockingly lulling vision of horror — the horror emanating from the meaninglessness of existence. According to Lynch, the awareness of existential meaninglessness is inherent at the deepest level in all living things— from ideal single-celled organisms to imperfect multicellular organisms, such as humans. Life is a constant horror, but there’s no need to fear it unnecessarily as long as you’re part of this horror, for against the nightmare of meaninglessness, you always have a birthright — your grin.

 As an uncompromisingly authentic artist, Lynch revealed that a masterpiece is not born when the creator obeys the tidy logic of an initial plan, but when he surrenders wholly to the inland empire of the work itself—an empire with its own unpredictable, sometimes absurd logic, known only to it. Lynch, the boundless creator, understood instinctively that the original impulse comes from nowhere and has every right to wander along a lost way. As the cinematic genius once quipped: “If someone tells me what my film is about, I’ll get down on my knees.”

 Yet there is another quality in Lynch’s art that, in my view, won the devotion of millions across the globe: his limitless empathy for his characters. Cast by the artist into the terrifying whirlpool of existence, they are never abandoned. That empathy is voiced not in words but in sound—through the uniquely rich palette of Angelo Badalamenti’s music, and through Lynch’s own compositions, shimmering with countless shades of feeling.

 R.I.P.

January 19, 2025