Mount Fuji 1936

Nicholas Roerich made this oil on canvas board painting of Mount Fuji, now in the Latvian National Museum of Art. It looks like the paint has been dragged, or maybe even applied with a cloth, giving it a super smooth surface. The color palette is so simple: layers of blues and reds, with each layer defining the distance to the next mountain. He used a very light touch to make the gradient in the sky, and he was clearly trying to capture a mood and a feeling more than a literal scene. The mountain in the foreground is a dark mass, and the one behind that, in a kind of periwinkle shade, looks almost like a mirage. I think of Agnes Martin, who also used a restricted palette to create a sense of space and light, a feeling that keeps expanding beyond the edges of the canvas. Both these artists remind us that painting isn't about showing us what we already know, it's about opening up new ways of seeing the world.