In 1809, the great composer Beethoven and Vienna were besieged.

Napoleon’s French armies bombarded Vienna. The royal family fled the city. Like so many others, Beethoven remained in Vienna. He wondered not only if he would live but if what was left of his hearing would survive the thunder of French cannon.

“The whole course of events has affected me in both body and soul,” Beethoven wrote of the Napoleonic invasion. “What a destructive and unruly life I see and hear around me; nothing but drums, cannon, and human misery in every form.”

Despite being surrounded by chaos, Beethoven composed his Piano Concerto No. 5, later known as “The Emperor.”

Listening to this beautiful concerto, one may never guess that Beethoven composed it while surrounded by conflict and death. “The Emperor” transcends the madness.

We share it because in our own age of chaos, when people are sheltering in place, when people are sick, when the economy suffers, when people face the loss of income and jobs, many may wonder, why bother with the arts?

We tend to forget that in the rich pageant of history, both chaos and creativity have existed hand in hand. 

Despite the hard work of rehearsals, shows cannot go on, exhibits are canceled, concerts are silenced. Still, people create and find ways to express themselves. They share online or they create in the cloister of their own homes.

History contains many examples of people creating despite adversity.

Londoners defied Hitler’s bomb raids by attending the theatre. Picasso found the powerful statement of “Guernica” in the horrors of war. John Steinbeck’s travels during the Great Depression inspired “The Grapes of Wrath.”

Vincent Van Gogh’s colorful paintings defy the suffering of his life.

In mankind’s distant past, when our ancestors possessed little hold on the earth, humans hunted and battled by day then sung songs and painted figures on cave walls by night.

Some may be tempted to sound the old Roman phrase of bread and circuses regarding the arts in times of uncertainty.

Instead, we should view our area’s art events as wellsprings of hope, faith and perseverance, as a sign of mankind’s indomitable will to make sense of madness.

In times of trouble, in times of chaos, we need the arts more than ever. The arts offer a balm to the troubled, an inspiration to overcome disasters and order in the midst of fear and illness and potential ruin.

Humans can transcend their circumstances through the arts. May the arts continue to express and transcend and persevere as certainly as we will in the days and weeks to come.

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times.