Pass. Tempest. Secret path. 1936

Nicholas Roerich made "Pass. Tempest. Secret path." with watercolour, and you can feel the artist pushing at the edges of what this medium can do. It's like Roerich was trying to figure out how to bottle a feeling, capturing the grandeur of these monumental mountains. You can sense them experimenting, letting the colors bleed and blend, almost like the mountains themselves were forming through some alchemical process. Look at the brushstrokes that suggest the figures near the bottom, tiny humans against the imposing mountains! You can imagine Roerich out in the landscape, trying to communicate not just what the place looked like, but also what it felt like to be there. Roerich probably looked at the landscape paintings of earlier artists and thought 'I want to go further - to capture not only its appearance, but also its spirit'. Like other artists, Roerich was in conversation with those who came before, pushing the boundaries, and trying to find new ways to express something ancient.