Tmutarakan 1919

Nicholas Roerich made this drawing, Tmutarakan, with graphite on paper, and it captures a particular place and time. The lines are all, like, feeling around, right? You can see where he’s gone over some of them again, deepening the tone, finding the edges. I am interested in the way he used the graphite; the marks appear scratchy and light, and the lines are more suggestive. It’s like Roerich is inviting us to finish the drawing ourselves, you know? There is a particular area on the right, where a building takes shape, where the graphite lines are concentrated, and it feels like a space of convergence. The different weights of lines used create the image through a layering of marks. It reminds me of other artists who also saw drawing as a form of thinking, like Cy Twombly or even Giorgio Morandi, who were always finding new ways to make art out of the simplest means. For me, art’s all about this kind of conversation, each artist building on what came before, and it never feels like there’s only one way to see things.