Order of Rigden Jyepo 1933

Nicholas Roerich gave us "Order of Rigden Jyepo" with what looks like tempera, and it feels like a landscape of the mind. The colour palette is intense, all the reds and oranges seem to glow, but it’s Roerich’s mark-making I love – he builds up forms with simple, confident strokes. The textures here are subtle, but potent. I can feel the dryness of the pigment, as if the painting itself is a landscape baked by the sun, echoing the arid scene it depicts. See how Roerich uses thin washes of color to create depth in the mountains, then contrasts them with the opaque, almost enamel-like figure of Rigden Jyepo himself? This contrast pulls the eye, making the figure seem both otherworldly and immediate. The flames lick upwards around Rigden Jyepo, and it's such a great gesture. For me, the flames suggest a dance, an eternal flux of energy and transformation. Roerich reminds me of Hilma af Klint, and her explorations of spiritual dimensions through abstract forms. It's like they're both tapping into something beyond the visible world. Art is cool like that, isn't it?