Zarathustra 1931

Nicholas Roerich made this painting of Zarathustra, we don't know when exactly, using tempera on canvas. It's all about mood, right? Look at the way those yellows melt into the oranges and pinks of the sky. It's not about detail; it's about feeling the vastness of the landscape and the solitary figure standing on the precipice. Roerich lays the paint on thin, almost translucent in places, like he's trying to capture the very essence of light itself. There's a real physicality to the mountains – those blues are almost velvety. But then your eye goes up to the figure on the rocks and that simple, almost childlike form holding the light. It's so raw, so direct. Roerich’s interest in spiritual themes, especially his connection to the Theosophical Society, reminds me a little of Hilma af Klint. Both artists were trying to visualise a kind of unseen world, and I think that's something we all grapple with as artists, this urge to make the invisible visible.