Ars et Labor, 1906 vol. I (page 18 crop)

St. Cecilia holds a portable organ that slips from her hands as she experiences a divine vision of heavenly music. In the foreground, various discarded and broken earthly instruments—including a viola da gamba, pipes, and cymbals—symbolize the vanity of mortal art compared to divine harmony. The figures are arranged in a semicircular composition, emphasizing a moment of shared but individualized spiritual rapture.

The painting illustrates the Neoplatonic hierarchy of beauty, where earthly music is abandoned for the superior 'music of the spheres' or celestial harmony. This transition from the material to the spiritual was a core tenet of Renaissance Neoplatonism regarding the soul's ascent toward the divine.