What’s up

(1) I recently watched The film Andrei Rublev, by Andrei Tarkovsky. A truly profound experience. The film is about many things, but above all it is about the life of an artist. About creation.

Andrei Rublev is based on the life of Andrey Rublyov (Андрей Рублёв), a 15th-century Russian icon painter. Rublev is a brilliant artist, but he lives with an inner conflict. In one scene he is ordered to create a painting that shows the terrible fate that awaits all sinners after death - a depiction of hell. Rublev feels doubt, he feels responsible for the messages he conveys. He worries about the people who will see it, especially the people who already have a difficult existence in the poor Russian countryside. Rublev makes the choice to turn his back on his career to create art that follows his inner compass.

In many ways, Andrei Rublev is really about the impermanence of art. No matter how much money or power is behind it, it is the fate of all art to eventually be erased. But the creation of it, the passion behind it and the reasons why we create art is all the more important. There are many moments in the film that will stay with me, but I won't spoil them here. See it when you have some time (3 hours) to spare.

Another cool dude - J.R.R Tolkien - wrote about what he called "sub-creation", a term that could be described as "world building" or something similar. But he had deeper implications to what he was referring to. He meant that the act of creation through imagination was a true form of worship. A repeating of the first creation, over and over. And through art, we can come to see reality more clearly via the mystic transmission of art.

"It was in fairy-stories that I first divined the potency of the words, and the wonder of things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine."

(2) Now, on to some music stuff. We (STANZA, the pseudo label run by me, Kristina & Charles) recently released new single: Walking in the Air by Stella Explorer & Quartermaster. It’s great.

Listen to it here.

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