China's heroics 1937

Nicholas Roerich made this painting, "China's Heroics," with oil on canvas. I’m thinking about the blues and oranges here—how they create a kind of tension, like colors vibrating against each other. I can imagine Roerich applying these colors, one after the other, building up the forms of the mountains and the Great Wall. Did he start with blue? And then added orange? Roerich was on a journey, literally and figuratively, into something ancient. I wonder what he was thinking as he created it? Did he feel the weight of history? The figure with the sword, standing guard—such a specific cultural type painted in such a flattened, almost decorative way. The mountains roll with stylized drama. Painting is about flattening space and creating the sensation of depth all at once. I see him as a fellow traveller. We continue to push painting into the unknown.