Rite Art

This drawing of a Mammoth (or Mastodont) was made largely with charcoal. For the details I used pastel pencil. The Mammoth was also drawn with charcoal by the Cro-Magnon people, some 17000 years ago. So with this drawing I went back to the beginning of the history of art. The animal is drawn by heart. In the beginning I made mistakes with the eye and the length of the legs. But I could still correct this in time. The music is ‘The rite of spring’, composed by Stravinsky. This music is about the primeval times, and seemed to me right for this video.

Directed by Vincent Rommelaere – www.wallabyway.com

Taken from both the BBC’s “Riot at the Rite” and Janos Darvas’ 2001 Documentary on Igor Stravinsky, an interesting accuracy as to what transpired between Sergei Diaghilev, owner of The Ballet Russes who would be dancing to the piece, and the composer who would, with this composition, change the direction of classical music at the first playing of the piece. This was 1913 and these men were in their 20′s. Diaghilev’s company of course went on to perform Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) to this shocking music which was exacerbated further by the incredibly advanced choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky, the Ballet Russes star who would from then on be considered out of his mind when he was merely years ahead of his time. Stravinsky, conversely, emerged a genius. Fatova Mingus.