Stones and rocks 1919

Nicholas Roerich painted this landscape, called “Stones and Rocks,” using oil on canvas. The blues and greens of the rocks, and the almost-black of the rock faces, make for a striking and immediate image. I love the material quality here. You can really see how Roerich applied the paint, thinly in some areas and thickly in others. Look at the lower left, for instance, where the strokes of blue paint, laid on top of each other, create a sense of depth and texture. It’s almost like you can feel the roughness of the rocks. This attention to the materiality of paint reminds me a little of Gustave Courbet, who was interested in representing the world as it is, without idealizing it. Like Courbet, Roerich seems to be interested in capturing the raw, unadorned beauty of the natural world. Both artists remind us that art is about more than just representation. It's about the artist's interaction with their materials, and the way that interaction shapes our experience of the world.