Legend 1923

Nicholas Roerich painted Legend with what looks like tempera on canvas, and what strikes me right away is how he's built up this dreamy landscape with such thin washes of color. The palette is all greens and browns, yet manages to feel otherworldly. Look at the way he's handled the sky, sort of blurring the distinction between the heavens and the earth. The figure is standing on what looks like a rise, the lines of the landscape barely visible, and yet Roerich has captured it somehow, imbuing the picture with this strange sense of peace. I can't help but think of Hilma af Klint, who was also preoccupied with the spiritual in art, though her approach was more abstract, a testament to how artists working with similar ideas can arrive at such different visions. It reminds us that art is less about answers and more about the questions it provokes.