Teacher of the Hearts. Tribute to Leonard Cohen

 Tribute to Leonard Cohen on the 10th anniversary of his passing

With art by Michael Rogatchi © and Inna Rogatchi ©

Getting Ready for Farewell 

As it happened, despite I wrote many tributes and essays about Leonard, it was only one among them that he read . There was an objective reason for that: apart from the piece that Leonard had read, all of them happened to be written after his passing, at the anniversaries of his death and in connection with meaningful tributes to him in various ways and countries.

On November 7th  2026, it would be a decade since Cohen’s passing. 

My small piece that Leonard has read , was written ten years ago, in September 2016, three days after probably the most special and  meaningful release of his single ever, You Want It Darker. I sent it to him and wrote to him a bit about it immediately when we heard it and saw the video of that extraordinary deed.  It was the end of September 2016. There was one and a half month before Leonard’s passing. But he knew about it already. It was his farewell. With his public, his music and poetry, his songs. His life. 

In my email to Leonard, I tried to project the brighter part of it, emphasising the beauty and wisdom of the song. Was it naive? Yes and no. I would do it again, in the same way. And Leonard? Being gracious himself, he just smiled, in writing too, and was gentle and warm as ever in his friendly response. 

Hard break

Leonard’s leaving this world was seriously difficult for us. As it was , I know it  first-hand, for so many from the millions of his fans world-wide. Each of those people has formed their own , very personal link with the world that Cohen has created. Each of them has put their own, very personal  perspectives into Leonard’s metaphors. As it is in the case of a really good poet, these metaphors and phrases have become a mental life-rope for so many, perceived differently in every individual case. 

As for me, after that very special Leonard’s  deed by writing , performing and releasing You Want It Darker which was also an act of an ultimate bravery for such emphatically private person as Cohen was, Leonard’s passing that has happened soon after that public farewell, has brought a kind of switch-off mode to my ability to listen to his songs. Usually, I, as so many other of his fans, would do it non-stop and so very often, but after his passing, I just could not. His last CD, with You Want It Darker as its title song, is the only one which is absent from our collection of all Cohen’s CDs. 

Presence

From the distance of time, it seems that quiet and self-contained Leonard has been far better prepared for his own departure from this world than many of his fans and followers, including us. As we discovered empirically, the personality of Leonard’s qualities  did not leave us completely. 

During the past decade, after initial pain and numbness, many of us got an ongoing gift of his presence, still quite tangible despite his physical absence and years gone. 

In our case, it is not Cohen’s records, or books, or videos of his concerts. But, most importantly, it is his smile, the enlightening in his eyes after his always paradoxical and elegant, not obvious jokes. It stays for us in his kindness which did not disappear. His unique, effortlessly encompassing personality still is felt as present among us. 

It is a rare quality, both in life and doubly so in after-life. I wonder if Leonard ever thought about it, not applying it towards himself, he was one of the most organically modest people I ever met, but in general, as a phenomenon which is rather special in our existence. I think he might. 

To mark his ongoing presence in our and many other lives, we both have decided to mark the 10th anniversary of his passing with a special project, Soul’s Fingerprints commemorative art collection dedicated to Leonard Cohen. The artworks included are reflecting some aspects of his phenomenon, and our artistic thoughts about his heritage which still enriches ours and many other lives. Both Michael and I  contributed ten artworks to the joint collection, exhibitions and presentations of which will start from the new 2027 year onward. 

Encounters 

My husband, artist Michael Rogatchi, is quite lucky as Leonard had seen many of his works, and had some of them belonged to his private collection. Leonard did like Michael’s art a lot and has praised it highly, especially Michael’s art on various Jewish themes which had been speaking to Leonard in particular. 

Among Michael’s works dedicated to Cohen at the different periods, Leonard saw a very special Blue Sound large oil painting which was created in the way as if coming directly from the Leonard’s massive rallie-concerts in early 2000s all over Europe. He was surprised, we saw it, and he smiled quietly, as if he was reading the painting almost literally. 

‘But you did it before yesterday’s concert, Michael, right? ‘ – Leonard mentioned while we all were in Florence , just after his unforgettable concert at the open Piazza Santa Croce square there in front of a five-thousand audience. – ‘ Yes, I did , dear Leonard, but it is still a new work, which was done quite recently, already here in Italy” – responded Michael. 

We all were taken by the incredible essence of a Leonard phenomenon in the large oil painting which has been completed for the special exhibition, the part of the same Live On art festival in Florence of which Leonard’s great concert was the main attraction. “ Well, it means the only thing: you read me well. The work says it all . And it is a very fine work. Thank you for your thinking and for your understanding, Michael” – Leonard’s genuine modesty never left him, under any circumstances that we know of. – “No no, dear Leonard, all our thanks, my thanks goes to you all the way, and to your great musicians, too” – Michael responded. – “They are dear friends, great musicians and special people, to me” – Leonard was smiling, as were we all, present there at the Florence palazzo just next to piazza Santa Croce where that incredible concert happened a night before, perceiving his truly very special smile as the main element around us at the moment. 

There are some people, especially introvert personalities  with a powerful and complex  inner world, whose smiles are special, as they originate from not an obvious source. Among them, Leonard’s smile always, unmistakable, has ignited a distinctive stratum around him at any place, be it a small restaurant table at the post-concert dinner with his team, or a giant stage from which he addressed thousands in a way in which most of us are speaking to a friend. 

His smile always prompted a momentary switch to another dominion, where kind humour and inner light were the masters of that space. How lucky we all were, those who were gifted these Leonard’s smiling moments, with his eyes switched on instantly, and with an additional meaning to whatever had been discussed getting blossomed at the spot in yet another small precious surprise which one could remember years on. 

Ten works, five oil paintings and five original drawings in Michael’s special technique , created between 2008 and 2021, comprises Michael’s part of our joint Soul’s Fingerprints commemorative art collection to mark the 10th anniversary of Leonard’s passing.  It is called Blue Sound. Homages to Leonard Cohen ( 2008 – 2021). 

 In the project, the artworks are accompanied by quotes from Leonard’s poetry making each of them a special unit.

A special version of Zion Waltz, original drawing on the same theme that is presented  at the Blue Sound collection as a large oil painting, Leonard had in his personal collection and kept it close to his heart. 

The half of the collection belongs to various notable private collections from the UK to Luxembourg. 

 As Michael commented with regard to our new collection remembering Leonard,  “Leonard was not only a very special poet with powerful and paradoxical mind, who was always able to surprise and show life and our experience of it from a completely unusual angle, but he also was a great man, true friend with a kind and a large heart. He was a rare organic humanist, always low-key, which only added real volume to his great personality. 

In my recollections, Leonard is the person whom it was really rewarding to see on and off stage, and who did teach us so much in such a completely unpretentious way. 

I still feel his presence today, after ten years since his passing. It is a rare human experience, and the gift for which I will always be grateful to Leonard.

In the works dedicated to him, and those dedicated to his way of seeing the world, I tried to convey his quiet philosophical look inside himself, his gentleness, his organic love towards people which was one of the most dominating features of his character, to me. 

I was also thinking of reflecting the depth of his thoughts and ideas that he conveyed to us all in such an elegant way which still waltzes with me, and many of us, forever. 

Such people like Leonard are a gift in one’s life, and for such a wonderful, unique and inspiring gift I will be always grateful to this unique man”. 

Postcards

I was not lucky to show most of my art homages to Leonard to him , except one, Heart Talk, for which he gracefully thanked me. The work is with a good friend of ours in the US, an ardent follower of Cohen and top movie executive. Since its creation, it has been also presented at the globally popular Leonard Cohen Forum , an official forum of The Leonard Cohen Files, the principal online resource for the multi-million Cohenistas audience world-wide. 

The rest of my works  from the collection dedicated to our charming Leonard have been done already after his passing. I tried to encompass in that series of homages called Postcards to Leonard ( 2013 – 2024) , also accompanied with pearls of his poetry, different sides of his personality and the circumstances which were important for his creativity, from Hydra horizon and his personal torment  ( Entering work)  to the famous cracks in everything ( There is a Crack in Everything ) and the very process of poetry making ( Poetry Life and Poetry  Making)  which in case of Leonard was meticulous, long, returning all the time for sake of one word, with continuously cutting every word literally like a diamond, in never stopping  process in his head. 

Some of the works are in notable collections in the USA, Finland and Austria, including those of Leonard and our close friends which especially warms up. One of the homages from the series is part of a large display at the Memorial Holocaust Garden located in Kingwood, Texas, along with many other of our artworks on permanent display there.  

In the collection, I have addressed places and moods, ideas and hopes that were important for Leonard as we knew from him personally, as well as his expectations and hopes, which were always striving towards the light however dark the circumstances or surroundings were, both historically and personally. 

What I always valued very highly in Cohen’s world, both his inner one and the one that he opened to his unimaginably wide world audience, is that he perceived history in general , and history of his people in particular, personally. Perceived and processed it in the way of non-declarative but very subtle openings of his inner self at the things which were of an utter importance. Leonard had a very precise measurement for that. And he has left his quiet but stern compassion as his legacy for millions. I hope that people will still listen to him and will understand what he meant and why.  

Those who were extremely lucky to see him and to listen to him on stage, would always keep a small particle of that warm, kind, humorous goodness that Cohen was projecting effortlessly, modestly, and with a great and very rare today tact. I always understood that his enormous popularity among so many people in such different countries was the same organic as he himself was. Leonard’s magnetism was part of his talent.  He was generous and talented in communicating with people, and disarmingly sincere about it. And he was the bard of goodness, importantly. People always knew that he was a real thing. 

It has already been a decade since that warm and special man left this world. But still today, his presence is quite strong, fortunately. If there is anything positive and constant in our saddened and pessimistic life of the 2020s, it is perhaps this unique man whom we still listen to and whose poetry we read today with an increasing nostalgia for human normality. In every sense and for so many, Leonard was one of the best interlocutors ever. 

As Leonard has not seen most of my artworks dedicated to him although he saw many other ones, and treated them typically gracefully, during creating my homages to him, I felt as continuing our dialogue, the one of the most precious of our personal treasures. 

In this ongoing dialogue’s maintenance, he is not gone for me for a second, and probably never will. 

As Leonard Cohen himself has put it in his Gift poem, 

There is no silence

There is another poem. 

Those many  moments of reflection. Quiet, inner, honest ones. The treasury of such moments. Full of warmth, smartness, and always surprising. Always out of the ordinary. The vitamins of decency for many. 

Thank you again, the Baldy Monk with a great and unique Jewish soul. You’ve made our lives and the lives of millions better. You really did, without thinking of it for a second. And you still keep the flame on. 

The Leonard Cohen Special Art Collections can be seen here: 

Michael Rogatchi ©. Blue Sound. Homages to Leonard Cohen. 

Inna Rogatchi ©. Postcards to Leonard. 

November 2026