Urusvati 1939

This painting of a mountain range, titled Urusvati, was made by Nicholas Roerich with what looks like tempera or a thin oil. Look at how the mountains are built up from flat planes of colour and how they almost feel like a model! The paint application is quite thin, so the texture of the canvas is still visible. The palette is limited to blues, oranges, and purples, giving the scene an otherworldly glow, a kind of transcendental quality. Notice the bold shapes of the peaks against the paler lilac sky, like simplified, geometric forms almost. This makes me think of other artists like Marsden Hartley who were also interested in simplifying landscapes into abstract shapes and symbolic forms, but Roerich's mountains have a unique mystical quality, a sort of dreamscape. Ultimately the painting leaves itself open to interpretation, which is how art invites you in!