Cover Story
This week's cover illustration for The New Yorker is called "Ready to Soar" by Sergio García Sanchéz, also known as SGS.
It shows a grand scene playing out at The Juilliard School, connecting the dance studio that projects out of the building over Broadway and the sidewalk below it.
In the upper register, Juilliard dance and music students practice their craft. In the lower one, a parent and child take inspiration. As the title explains, each-and-all are getting ready to achieve new heights.
Some details in the picture are a tiny-bit fictitious.
For example, the real dance studio is only one story high and it belongs to the dance department.
And also, in case you didn’t notice it, the guy strumming the bass has three arms. And some of the dancers are transparent.
But pointing these things out gets in the way of a bigger, better visual story.
SGS’s art evokes the feeling of the place extremely well. The school is full of bright, dedicated students of music, dance, and drama. And they do inspire audiences. And the space itself is like a big glass box of light, especially late in the day and after darkness falls.
If you catch it at the right time, it feels just like this.
How do I know?
This autumn, I have been going to Juilliard two evenings per week for Extension Program classes. On Tuesdays, I attend a lecture series on the Bach Cello Suites by an accomplished young faculty cellist. And on Wednesdays, an Ear Training course by a super-talented pianist and music theory professor.
Who is SGS?
He is an editorial illustrator and professor of art at University of Granada in Spain, and a regular contributor of covers for The New Yorker. His line and color are modern, but his subjects tend toward the traditional.
Other notable covers SGS has done for The New Yorker include a portrait of the magazine’s monocled mascot Eustace Tilley ("Eustace Tilley at Ninety-Six"), a scene from Grand Central Station at Halloween ("Old Haunts"), and an episode involving one of The New York Public Library’s literary lions ("On The Same Page").
There's a nice, short interview with SGS at the link below about his inspirations for this cover, and his art work more broadly.
すごいよかった, セルジオ!
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cover-story/cover-story-2023-12-04
