The holder of the cup. Mongolia. 1937

Nicholas Roerich made 'The holder of the cup. Mongolia' with tempera on cardboard; he must have been standing in the landscape himself. It has this very tactile feeling, the sort of sandy roughness of the place, the high sky, that you get when you use tempera. I wonder what it was like to stand there and make this painting. Roerich must have been in love with the atmosphere and colors. Look at the brush strokes and that lovely bronze statue holding their cup. It’s all about the paint, so thin you can see the ground and the way it’s scrubbed into the cardboard. Roerich’s been drinking from the same cup himself, breathing in that atmosphere. This isn't photorealism, but something more like feeling. Painting isn’t just about illustrating, it is about feeling, like a conversation between painters across time.