Zmievna 1906

Nicholas Roerich painted Zmievna, sometime in his career, probably with tempera on canvas. You can tell the paint is applied thinly; it’s almost translucent in places, which gives the whole thing a dreamlike quality. The palette is warm, earth-toned, but also otherworldly, like a fairy tale, and that really helps me see artmaking as an act of storytelling. I keep looking at the scales of the serpent. They are so uniform; almost like he used a stamp or some kind of stencil. The paint is thick in these areas, which gives the scales a tactile quality, as if you could reach out and touch them. That’s very interesting, because it brings a sense of reality to the fantasy scene. Roerich’s later work, like his Himalayan landscapes, became much more abstract and symbolic, but you can still see the same interest in texture and surface. This is really an ongoing conversation between artists, across time and cultures. I can definitely see references to Symbolism and Art Nouveau, but there is also something so unique and personal in Roerich’s vision.