Tibet 1933

Nicholas Roerich painted Tibet using tempera on canvas, and it presents us with a striking mountain. The mountain, a symbol of stability and spiritual aspiration, towers over the landscape. For centuries, the mountain has appeared in the cultural memory of different people, as the axis mundi, the connection between the earthly and divine realms. We can see echoes of this in the ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia, as well as in the pyramids of Egypt and the temples of Mesoamerica, all pointing to the heavens. In Tibet, mountains are sacred, believed to be the homes of deities, with pilgrimages made to these peaks to accrue spiritual merit. Roerich captured the emotional and psychological power these natural cathedrals exert on us. The mountain, therefore, becomes a symbol not only of geographical significance but also of our enduring quest for the transcendent. The symbol is not linear but cyclical, resurfacing, evolving, and taking on new meanings.