Street in front of castle 1913

Nicholas Roerich made this evocative little painting, Street in front of castle, with tempera on cardboard. The blue monochrome of this piece immediately sets a somber tone. It's as if Roerich is embracing the mutability of perception, and the way a single color can convey so much. The surface texture is fairly smooth, but there’s a visible grain, like the laid surface of paper, which adds to the overall feeling of the piece as a preliminary study. My eye is drawn to the large tower looming over the buildings. Its cylindrical form is softened at the edges, and the way the light catches the side of the building gives it volume. You can tell the Roerich wasn’t trying to make something perfectly realistic, but rather to give an emotional impression of the place. This tempera on cardboard reminds me of Hilma af Klint, who was also exploring spiritual themes in her work at the time, creating her own visual language to express the ineffable. For me, it’s all about seeing art as a process of ongoing conversation, of visual call and response.