View of Kangchenjunga from Turpindar 

Nicholas Roerich painted this view of Kangchenjunga, the world's third-highest mountain, in the first half of the 20th century. Roerich was a theosophist, and paintings like this one are less about representing the mountain and more about channeling a spiritual force. Roerich made hundreds of paintings of the Himalayas. The simplified shapes and blocks of pure colour, along with the total lack of human presence, encourage a sense of the sublime. Roerich believed that the Himalayas had a special spiritual power, and his paintings were meant to evoke that power in the viewer. He thought that contemplating images of the Himalayas would bring people to a higher state of consciousness. Roerich founded his own institution, the 'Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute' in India, which studied Tibetan medicine, botany, and languages. We can learn more about Roerich's work through the archives of this institution, and through the many books and essays he wrote about art and spirituality.