WHEN this week's cover started coming off the presses, the artist who painted it, Sidney Nolan, was in the mountainous wilds of the Sepik area of New Guinea watching native dances. "I wish Nureyev could have been here in the mountains with me," Nolan told TIME'S Australian correspondent by radiotelephone. "Somehow, 100 natives dancing with gorgeous bird of paradise feathers in their hair symbolized for me the very spirit of ballet."

This is TIME'S third cover story on the ballet* and Nolan's first cover for TIME. It was a commission that he welcomed with great enthusiasm. An Australian who now lives in London, Nolan is known for his brooding canvases, his translucent colors, and his figures of man, often puzzled but always dignified. A ballet buff for years, he designed the sets for Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring at London's Covent Garden. He is a convinced Nureyev fan, has been observing the dancer since 1962. In London he once watched from the balcony for a week while Nureyev was rehearsing for Romeo and Juliet, a ballet that Nolan sees as "a ritual description of our civilization." The portrait depicts Nureyev in rehearsal costume, a kerchief round his head. "I wanted to show the feeling I got from him as he rehearsed Romeo," Nolan said. "He is a wonderfully perceptive artist, and I tried to get that in as well."

ANOTHER assignment for this week's issue that was received with special enthusiasm was for the Religion story on Islam. Central to the story is the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca's holy places that for a devout Moslem is the ultimate in spiritual reward on this earth. One such devout Moslem is TIME'S veteran Cairo-based stringer Mohamed Wagdi, and for him the job was the opportunity of a lifetime--to make the hajj and report it. For the six weeks after he first made his application to go on last year's pilgrimage until he returned to Cairo, he kept a diary of his experiences. This became a basic piece of research for the story and the color pages. Reporter Wagdi finished the assignment physically exhausted but spiritually enriched by the rewards promised to the hajj pilgrims--forgiveness of sins and the start of a new life.

*The others: Ballerina Margot Fonteyn (Nov. 14, 1949) and Choreographer George Balanchine (Jan. 25, 1954).

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