River Chandra 1933

Nicholas Roerich made this watercolour painting, River Chandra, and it’s all about these soft washes and how the colours bleed into each other, which to me is the whole point of painting: it’s a process! Look at how he's built up the landscape with these layers of watery hues, mostly blues and greens, that create this serene, almost dreamlike place. It’s so quiet, you can almost hear the river flowing, right? Then you see those two tiny figures on the right – maybe monks, or travelers? – and the scale of the mountains just swallows them up. I love how Roerich uses the texture of the paper, letting it peek through, especially in the river, so it glows. And then there’s that dab of pure turquoise in the sky; it’s like a little spark of magic that holds the whole composition together. It reminds me a little of the way Marsden Hartley used to paint mountains, with a simplified, almost symbolic feel. It’s all about art as this ongoing conversation across time. You know?