Lake Dal 1925

Nicholas Roerich brushed this painting ‘Lake Dal’ into being with oils, working and reworking the surface, layering blues and browns to find the solid forms of these incredible mountains. I’m really struck by the way he’s built up the land, structuring the ridges and valleys, as if he was a cartographer mapping unknown territories. I wonder if he saw himself as an explorer? He’s probably thinking about perspective, sure, but it looks like feeling, too. The blues could almost be sorrow. I can imagine him, brush in hand, searching for the right pigment to capture the shifting light. Doesn’t it remind you of other landscape painters, like Cezanne, with his mountains, or maybe even some of the Hudson River School painters with that awesome sublime scale? There's something so deeply human about trying to capture nature. Each painter, each painting, adds something new to our conversation about landscape and the sublime.