Vignette for book "N. K. Roerich" 1918

This little vignette was made with ink for a book about the artist, Nicholas Roerich. It’s like looking at a dreamscape or some kind of mythical world. I can imagine Roerich making this, carefully inking each line, letting the image emerge slowly. There’s a real sense of atmosphere here, a kind of elemental energy in the sky and earth, with the horizontal lines of the sea. I love the textures he’s created with simple marks. Looking at this drawing, I think about other artists who explore similar themes, like Hilma af Klint. She was working with the unseen forces of nature, trying to visualize the invisible. Roerich, too, was after something beyond the surface, something deeply spiritual, that you get a feeling of when you look at the image. Artists are constantly in conversation, borrowing, and riffing off one another, creating a kind of visual echo chamber across time. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?