White horsemen 1918

Here is the land captured in paint by Nicholas Roerich, in White horsemen. Look how the painting came into being through big brushstrokes of blue, white, and a touch of yellow, shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. I sympathize with Roerich and wonder what it was like to create this landscape and what he might have been thinking. The paint looks thin, like watercolour almost, allowing the eye to roam freely across the canvas. The way he's built up the clouds is really interesting; in the top left one is a standing figure. It almost looks like he's trying to find figures in the landscape. The whole painting feels very spiritual. This piece is a reminder that artists are in an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. Painting is a form of embodied expression that embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.