Ladakh 1929

Nicholas Roerich painted Ladakh, a landscape, with what looks like tempera, and maybe some gouache. I love the way the paint has been applied in blocks and slabs. It’s not a rendering, more like a construction. The colours seem simple, naive almost, and yet the way they combine is quietly sophisticated. Notice how the soft pink in the sky meets the icy blue of the mountains. I’m really drawn to the peaks of the mountains in the center of the piece. There's a feeling of upward movement, they are jagged and irregular but still sort of soft. What I really love is the way it embraces a limited palette to create a very moving image. It reminds me a little bit of Marsden Hartley. Roerich’s vision is unique and personal, but he’s definitely talking to those early modernists. For me, this is what painting is all about, an ongoing conversation across time.