Himalayas. Chain of Kanchenjunga. 1936

Nicholas Roerich made this painting, Himalayas. Chain of Kanchenjunga., with tempera on cardboard. The layers of blue and brown washes build up the valleys below, pushing the snowy mountain peaks into the pale blue sky. I can imagine Roerich working outside, trying to capture the effects of light as the sun moves across the mountain range. Mountains are tricky to paint. How do you convey their monumentality? How do you turn something so vast and imposing into a series of marks? I see Roerich applying layers of diluted paint to build the structure of the mountain range from dark to light, flat planes stacked one in front of the other. It’s a kind of painting shorthand. Painters are always looking to each other for clues. I wonder if Roerich knew the work of Cezanne? Those blues and browns feel somehow related. And the way the mountain range spreads across the composition. Painting is a conversation. One artwork speaks to another across time and place.