Title: “Afternoon of a Faun”(after Nijinsky) 2021
©️Arts Law Australia
Artist: Neville Williams / Model: Charles
Size: 44cm H / Base 33cm square
Media: Fired clay, lacquer, red bole
gold leaf on wooden base
POA
This seductive harlequin has been through so many manifestations I have lost count. I think though that here he has finally found his place. In his latest incarnation he appears as a Nijinsky figure wearing the costume from the dancer’s own choreographed ballet “Afternoon of a Faun”. The original ballet possesses erotic, guttural expression and startled audiences.
An extraordinarily gifted dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky eventually took on too much for his fragile being to be able to handle. He didn’t know his own limitations. He ended up in an asylum which did no one any good most of all Nijinsky. His partner/lover Sergei Diaghilev who established the famous Ballets Russes based in Paris fell out of love with his paramour. Difficult to love someone who has lost it.
Diaghilev eventually didn’t want to have anything to do with what Nijinsky had become…as the French say…an ‘enfant terrible’. Though Diaghilev wouldn’t have been an easy character to be with either. I guess the lesson is keep your feet on the ground, enjoy what yoo can do or perhaps better as Socrates said “Know thyself”. NW☺︎
