Sadness (Two in boat) 1939

Nicholas Roerich made this watercolour, Sadness (Two in boat), which feels like it could have been yesterday or a hundred years ago. The soft washes and blending of colours suggests a real openness to process, a letting go and being receptive to the materials. Roerich’s application of colour is so delicate it's almost like looking at a faded photograph, where the image is just about to disappear. Look closely at the way the blue and purple bleeds into the paper, creating soft, blurry edges. There's a quietness here, but also a depth that asks you to pause and reflect. The boat itself is more sharply defined, holding two human figures, but the water is subtly modulated, shifting from light to dark like shifting moods. The palette reminds me of Hilma af Klint's more muted works; both artists embrace the ethereal quality of colour to explore inner states. Roerich offers us a space where sadness isn’t just an emotion, but a vast, atmospheric landscape.