How Birds and Animals Dug the Daugava River

1989-1990, tempera, watercolour, paper, 27,2x19,6 cm /// Kārlis Dobrājs (1943) is one of the classics of Latvian painting. The series of drawings was commissioned for the book “Vēja Vanadziņš” (“Windy Accipiter”, 1993). It compiles a selection of artistic representations of Latvian legends and tales, with a visually depicted narrative of the stories themselves. The coloured, hand-drawn illustrations are original works, with each being a one-of-a-kind piece. This beautiful folktale is as pure and bright as the illustration. The main character is God, who, in order to separate the beasts from the quarrel, called everyone to dig the "fate-river" of Latvia - the Daugava. This legend involves a very simple but very useful lesson. It is the skill of work and the love for the thing that one does that matter. In boredom, a person also becomes unproductive and itchy. The work does the one who is doing it.