Grand Canyon 1921

Nicholas Roerich created this painting of the Grand Canyon with tempera on canvas, a rather traditional choice of materials. What's interesting here is how Roerich used tempera to evoke something so massive. Think about the process: he would have carefully ground pigment into a binder, probably egg yolk, and then applied it in thin, matte layers. You can almost feel the artist’s hand patiently building up the image, stroke by stroke. Tempera isn't really about grand gestures, but more about control and deliberation. The effect is very different from the kind of bravura brushwork you might associate with, say, oil painting. Roerich embraces that difference, using the qualities of the material to suggest a sense of geological time, the canyon's immense age made palpable through the careful labor involved in the painting itself. It invites us to consider the earth not as a resource, but as something carefully built, like a work of art.