Himalayas 1945

Nicholas Roerich conjured these Himalayas with paint, maybe tempera, maybe gouache, who knows? The painting has emerged from a ground of the palest blue, like the thinnest of atmospheres, over which he’s laid down these mountains. The peaks are built from facets of indigo, mauve, and white; it’s like Roerich is searching for the essence of mountainness. I can imagine him painting outside, trying to capture the feeling of the air. Roerich made hundreds of these mountain paintings; some of them feel like preparatory sketches and others feel like fully realized meditations. You can sense him experimenting with different forms of representation, but always coming back to the same subject, as though painting the mountains over and over would lead him to some kind of deeper understanding. Like Monet, obsessively painting his waterlilies. It’s inspiring how artists return to the same themes and imagery to explore new possibilities.