Mekheski - Moon People 1915

Nicholas Roerich created ‘Mekheski - Moon People’ with oil on canvas. Look at the weight and depth of those blues! You can almost feel the brushstrokes layering the sky, swirling like thick clouds ready to burst. The light from the moon is just enough to suggest the rough stonework. I like how the painting feels both ancient and immediate. Roerich must have spent hours building up those surfaces, scraping and adding, feeling his way through the night. The painting feels as if it has been excavated. And those little figures perched up there... they're like witnesses, or maybe they're part of the moon itself. Roerich painted a lot of landscapes with a spiritual dimension, and he was part of this whole movement searching for deeper meanings. It makes me think about artists like Hilma af Klint, also exploring the mystical through abstract forms. Each artist is in conversation with those who came before, reaching for something beyond what we can see.