Vernicle 1934

Editor: This drawing, "Vernicle" by Nicholas Roerich, created in 1934, uses charcoal. The building depicted feels imposing, almost like it's weighing down on the landscape. What jumps out to you about it? Curator: Well, immediately, I consider the materiality of charcoal itself. Think about the process: burned wood, reduced to a tool for depiction. It’s interesting that Roerich, with ties to Russian Avant-Garde movements, chose such a seemingly traditional medium to represent a religious structure. Do you think this choice is intentional? Editor: Maybe? Charcoal’s readily available, a common material, and affordable. Could Roerich be suggesting something about accessibility and the Church, maybe a democratization of spiritual experience? Curator: Precisely. He isn't working with rare pigments or precious metals, materials that denote wealth and status. Instead, he uses something earthy, almost primal. Consider how the image's creation is intrinsically linked to destruction, with wood having to be burnt, questioning what is lost and gained in acts of faith. Note how it creates texture in the rendering of architecture itself. Editor: It definitely makes me rethink the composition. The starkness of the black and white emphasizes the building's form and invites speculation about the building's importance as shelter. The act of physically *making* the work really emphasizes accessibility in that way, something for everyone. Curator: The labour that the work evokes also speaks to something foundational. By presenting his artistic work in connection to fundamental components like charcoal, are the works calling out the history of materiality to bring a higher calling? Editor: Absolutely! I hadn’t considered the connection so directly. Curator: Art allows a closer reading of materiality itself as more than what it immediately suggests to the viewer. Editor: I'll definitely look at other art with materiality at the front of my mind now! Thanks!