“The Mortal Canvas” is the sixth story in Gleanings. It was written by Neal Shusterman and co-authored with David Yoon.
Plot[]
Set in the 2070s, the story is centered around Mortimer Ong, a student at the Mischler Art Academy. Their art teacher, Ms. Cappellino, was mortal-born, and laments how art is becoming less genuine and meaningful due to the loss of death and the finality it provides. One day a scythe named after Af Klint challenges his art class to an art contest, with the winner receiving a year of immunity.
The class is understandably stressed out, and struggle to come up with ideas. Though the scythe never specified what would happen to the losers, they all assume they would be gleaned. They visit a museum and there Morty kisses Trina. They sleep together, fearing that they might be dead soon. Morty is suddenly struck with inspiration.
At the showing, the scythe reveals that the true judge of the contest is the audience, not her. Morty does not win. However, his piece entitled Af Klint Contemplating Sappho's Exit, depicts the nude form of founding Sycthe Sappho with Af Klint's face, picking up the dagger which she self-gleaned with. Scythe Af Klint is close to gleaning Morty himself but he explains that in order to produce true art he needed to fear death like in the mortal age. The audience is rendered speechless with awe (both because of the painting and because of his sheer audacity) and Scythe Klint names it the "last mortal artwork".
The story ends with the art teacher being gleaned, as the scythe wanted to glean her respectfully before a mortal-born purge would. The story heavily focuses on the mortal-born and post-mortal generations' divide, and the question of if art is still art in a non-mortal age.
Characters[]
- Belinda Cappellino
- Morty
- Trina Orozco
- Wynter Weitz
- Wyatt Weitz
- Scythe Af Klint
- Barista
- Scythe Sappho (mentioned)
Inspiration behind the story[]
"I’m already a fan of Neal’s writing, so when he asked me to contribute to this anthology, I couldn’t help but dive right in. One of the most intriguing questions the Scythe universe asks is: if death were no longer a factor, what would we live for? We always tell ourselves to live life to the fullest, appreciate every minute of every day, and so on. But if we had unlimited time on earth, would those axioms go away? Would we stop thinking about life’s value entirely? For me, immortality’s effect on artistic work was particularly interesting, because so much of art explores what it means to be alive in the face of inevitable death. Would art in an immortal age be empty, simply because it had run out of questions to ask? And would immortals no longer be able to understand art from the mortal age?" — David Yoon co-author of “The Mortal Canvas”[1]