A collection of approx. 70 sketches and drawings by Meir Ariel and eleven pages handwritten by him, with drafts of the songs of the album "Rishumei Pecham" (Charcoal Sketches). [Ca, 1990s].
An impressive collection of drawings and handwritten drafts from the time Meir Ariel was working on his fifth album – "Rishumei Pecham" (Charcoal Sketches).
• Eleven draft pages handwritten by Meir Ariel, of the songs of the album "Rishumei Pecham": "Chayat HaBarzel" (Iron Animal), "Shamati SheAt Nimtzet" (I Heard You are Present), "HaZanav HaBilti Nireh shel Shir HaMiktzo'ah" (The Invisible Tail of the Profession Song), "HaAdam Eino Elah…" (Man is But…), "Democraki" [Democracy], "Bass BaBalon" (Bass in the Balloon), "S'Uchtuha-Efes 3" [S'Uchtu Eppes 3], "Shir Hata'asuka" (The Employment Song), "Keta MeHagmara – MeEin Haftarah" [Peh Gadol] and a song that eventually was not included in the album – "Kamah VeChama Sibot Tovot Bishvil Geveret Lakum BaBoker" (Several Good Reasons for a Lady to Wake Up in the Morning). Most of the drafts are somewhat different from the versions that were eventually recorded, varying in a few words or in complete verses.
• Three abstract portrait-sketches in pastel chalks, two of them integrating the Hebrew inscription "Charcoal Sketches". Presumably, they were meant to appear on the cover of the album.
• Approx. 70 sketches and drawings on stationery, notes and leaves of notebooks in various techniques (ink, watercolors, felt-tipped pens, and more). Presumably, they were meant to accompany Ariel's songs and appear in album booklets. Many of the sketches are portraits (among them at least one self-portrait) and on some of them, there is also an inscription: names of songs, recording instructions, names and more.
• Two envelopes with Hebrew captions handwritten by Ariel: "Rishuemi Pecham, sketches" and "Rishumei Pecham (temporary name), (there is a donor!), lyrics".
Meir Ariel (1942-1999), songwriter, singer and composer, one of the most important creators in Israeli music. As a member of Kibbutz Mishmarot and a son of a bible teacher, Ariel absorbed in his childhood and youth the culture of the Kibbutz as well as knowledge of the bible. This combination served Ariel as an inexhaustible fountain of linguistic combinations describing in the most precise manner the Israeli crisis as he experienced it during the late 1960s. In 1967, after taking part in the conquering of the Western Wall as a paratrooper, he responded as battle-shocked, yet directly and immediately, to the voices of victory and the euphoria, and in response to Naomi Shemer's song "Jerusalem of Gold", he wrote and performed his own version of the hit song which he titled "Jerusalem of Iron", in which he emphasized the bitter aspects of the war. Ariel was usually misunderstood and received the title "the Singing Paratrooper", which he rejected. After a long stay in the USA, where he was deeply affected by Bob Dylan, he returned to Israel and by a rich and complex series of albums revealed aspects of the Israeli existence which until then had been hidden from view. His first album "Shirei Chag UMoed VeNofel" (Songs of Holidays and Stumbling and Falling – the Hebrew phrase "Chag uMoed" is homonymous, meaning both "holidays" and "spinning and stumbling"), includes one of the most important texts of Hebrew songwriting, "Shir Ke'ev" (A Song of Pain), in which he succeeded in representing the emotional consequences of the Occupation. In this song, he wrote among others one of his most quoted sentences: "At the end of every sentence you say in Hebrew sits an Arab with a narghile (hooka), even if it begins in Siberia or Hollywood with Hava Nagila (Let Us Rejoice)".
His fifth album, "Rishumei Pecham" (Charcoal Sketches), published in 1995, is considered a complex concept album, harder to digest than its predecessors. The album contained, among others, the songs "Chayat Habarzel" (Iron Animal), "Bass BaBalon" (Bass in the Balloon), "Shir HaMiktzo'ah" (The Profession Song) and others, in which Ariel expressed man's futility facing nature, alongside a sense of grievance against the Capitalistic race and enslavement to technology.
In the decade leading to his premature death, Ariel grew close to Jewish tradition and started observing Mitzvahs "in a sportive manner" as he defined it. Among others, he engaged in an in-depth study of the bible and in dialogue with rabbinic tradition in a manner that influenced his later work, in which he defied the digital era, which he perceived as apocalyptic.
A total of approx. 70 drawings and sketches, 11 handwritten drafts and two envelopes. Size and condition vary. Good overall condition. Three of the sketches are stamped with the stamp of Meir Ariel's Estate.