Once something has passed, it cannot be undone. Thus, an erased painting is erased forever.
There was a painting I had created to express the message of my short story, "A Death Too Trivial." It was meaningful to me because it was a work that connected the novel with the painting. But for a viewer who had no knowledge of this context, it was just a painting. The first viewer's reaction was a look of bewilderment, as if to say, "What is this?" It was completely wrong. I didn't even feel the urge to explain the painting by saying, "This is why and how I painted it." Feeling deflated, I immediately covered the painting with red paint. But one brushstroke wasn't enough to fully erase the underlying painting. Just as I was about to paint over it again, I suddenly noticed something. The strange combination of the barely visible remnants of the painting beneath the red paint had created a new harmony. It was another painting, formed unintentionally as an underpainting. I thought I could fully develop this underpainting into a new artwork.
This painting, newly born from the erased one, will be seen by many people unless it is destroyed. But the erased painting is as good as gone forever. The erased painting, now forgotten even in my memory, has been left as an eternal secret to those who might have been curious about it.