St.Olga of Kyiv 1915

Nicholas Roerich made this tempera on canvas, St. Olga of Kyiv, and what strikes me is the flatness, but also the richness of the layered detail. It’s all pattern and symbol, but then so is a lot of painting. Roerich’s hand is all over this surface; you feel him building up the layers. There’s something about the way that Roerich uses colour to create a medieval aesthetic. The yellow is dominant, but it's grounded in green and offset by the black. The yellow creates that sense of depth, but the way he layers detail upon detail makes it a unique kind of space. If you look closely at the cross Olga is holding, you can see the rough quality of the tempera, but the texture is contrasted by the smooth halo behind her head. Thinking about someone who did something similar, maybe not stylistically but in terms of the layering of colours, details, and patterns, I'm reminded of Gustav Klimt. These are like windows into other worlds.