Vincent Van Gogh, Wheatfield With Crows, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

I hesitate to say anything after the death of Robin Williams. But somehow it feels like a kind of betrayal if I don’t. Not a betrayal to him, of course. We never met. But to not express something seems a betrayal to art. I wince as I write that. Pretentious, much? Better to leave expressions about Mr. Williams’ life and death to the public campfire keepers or Facebook’s wailing wall.

No, that’s not right, either. Things must be said.

That’s all art is about: saying things out loud. Connecting. Great artists don’t just create things; they create cultures. No work of art is complete without an audience. Art can’t exist outside its community. A great artist like Robin Williams connects us around our public campfire. Nothing binds like shared laughter.

Nothing shatters like an unexpected suicide. It’s the ultimate disconnect, the nothingness of anti-art. This is not to disrespect in any way his final solitary struggle that, apparently, no one could breach. This event, so painfully private and now horribly public, scares up our own solitude.

Which is why we need art.