Spring 1931

Nicholas Roerich made this watercolor painting, titled "Spring," with soft blues and purples layered to build a landscape of mountains under an empty sky. I imagine him, standing outside with his paper, quickly trying to capture something he sees and feels. Look at the way the colors fade into each other, suggesting the depth and airiness of the mountain range. There is a tower built on the top of one of the mountains. Perhaps he was thinking about the passage of time, and how the tower is a fixed object against the immensity of nature. The way the paint is applied so thinly, almost like a wash, makes me think of other landscape painters like John Singer Sargent, who was also trying to catch the light and mood of a place in a fleeting moment. Roerich's painting feels like an invitation to experience the vastness and beauty of nature.