Himalayas. Varicoloured snows. 1937

Nicholas Roerich gave us this dreamscape, Himalayas. Varicoloured snows., with paint, and a light touch. It's a vista caught between waking and sleeping. Look how he’s built these peaks with strokes of pure colour. I imagine Roerich, brush in hand, almost meditating on each facet of the mountains. The blues, yellows and lavenders aren’t just colours; they’re emotional states, right? I think he's inviting us to climb into his mind. It’s like he’s saying, ‘Here, feel this, breathe this air, see what I see.’ Other painters have tried similar things, Marsden Hartley’s mountain series comes to mind, and even Lawren Harris's landscapes. There is a certain feeling of spiritual intensity, right? They are all trying to catch the sublime, the uncatchable. Painting, for Roerich, feels like a sacred act, a way of communing with the vastness of the world. Each of these artists are in conversation, trying to show us how we might feel it too.