Himalayas. Pink peaks. 1947

Nicholas Roerich made this painting of the Himalayas with what looks like tempera, and it's pretty flat, like early Renaissance painting. Roerich’s got these pinkish, whitish, yellowish peaks that might remind you of Cezanne. The blue is cool, like the blue you get in the mountains when the light isn’t bouncing off of anything. I see some kind of existentialist landscape, one where it’s only about being. Roerich flattens all the space so there's no place to enter the landscape, only to see it. You can feel the hand of the artist guiding the paint, laying it down in these solid strokes. I get the feeling of a guy who's out there in the mountains, going to enlightenment. Painting is this ongoing conversation across time. We're all inspiring each other's creativity. This painting embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations, so you get to bring your own story to it.