After I presented to Adele’s (age 6) and Evija’s (age 8) family all illustrated fairy tales that were created by the sisters, they had to choose their favourite ones for further development. They decided that they would like to have two paintings – one for each sister. The parents allowed the girls to choose, though it wasn’t an easy decision for them to make. Eventually, Adele chose The Desert fairy tale, and Evija chose The Dragon and Owls.
Once the fairy tales were chosen, I researched online the cultural heritage that related to the symbolism and subject matter. I was working on both artworks simultaneously but, for the sake of clarity, firstly I will publish the whole creative process of the ‘Dragon’ painting (eventually titled ‘The Burning Forest‘), and then – the ‘Desert’ painting (i.e. ‘The Magical Water’).
Historic Symbolism Behind Dragons
Even though dragons never exhisted (unless dinosaurs could also be named as dragons), the history of dragons is long. I found a brilliant article on livescience.com explaining brief history of those beasts. Bellow is a great excerpt:
‘The word “dragon” comes from the ancient Greek word “draconta,” meaning “to watch,” suggesting that the beast guards treasure, such as mountains of gold coins or gems.<…> But this doesn’t really make sense because a creature as powerful as a dragon surely doesn’t need to pay for anything, right? It’s probably more of a symbolic treasure, not for the hoarding dragon but instead a reward for the brave knights who would vanquish the evil beast.’ (Source: livescience.com)
However, holding a dragon as an opponent of heroes that needs to be defeated does not relate well with the fairy tale created by the sisters: the dragon got hurt in the forest and owls healed it. Why did Evija chose to be a dragon then? Because it would be cool to be a powerful creature? Perhaps.
In Greek mythology, ‘the use of dragon’s teeth provides a simple method of expanding the armed forces of any country. It was first practiced by Cadmus, King of Thebes.’ (Source: livescience.com) This gave me an idea that perhaps the backstory of this painting could be about some human being attempting to kill Evija The Dragon in order to gain something. Evija got badly hurt, but she survived because of friends (or, on another level, because of her sister and cousin). That type of story could associate with the issues of today’s world such as illegal hunting of rare animal species.
There‘s another very famous legend (often told as a fairy tale to children) about Saint George and the Dragon. ‘The story goes that the dragon originally extorted tribute from the villagers. When they ran out of livestock and trinkets for the dragon, they started giving up a human tribute once a year. This was acceptable to the villagers until a well-loved princess was chosen as the next offering. The saint thereupon rescues the princess chosen as the next offering. (Source: Wikipedia.org). Judging from this story, it seems that dragons are usually meant to be an opponent to be defeat for boys. Again – does not relate well to our current fairy tale. Nonetheless, this mythical story was a great inspiration for many artists. Their works are helpful for me to get original ideas on how I could depict Evija The Dragon.
Eventually, I did not take up the narrative involving a poacher. Instead, a much more fitting reason for the dragon getting hurt was a fire in the forest. I will tell you the reason in following posts.
