Border of Tibet. Tsaidam. 1936

Nicholas Roerich made this tempera painting, Border of Tibet. Tsaidam., with a light palette of ochre, violet and pink. Imagine Roerich in the landscape, trying to capture the feel of the place with these simple blocks of color. The violet feels so cool and still, and the mountains are like cutouts. What's it like to be there, on that border? Roerich went on expeditions to remote places and made a lot of paintings of mountains. I wonder if it's like de Kooning, who painted women over and over in his paintings. Maybe Roerich was always chasing the feeling of actually being in the mountains while he was painting them. Like, could he make the painting be the same as the place? Artists keep working at the same themes and images, trying to figure out some feeling or idea, even if it's impossible to pin down. They keep the conversation going!