Sophocles 1893

Curator: Well, this pencil drawing by Nicholas Roerich is entitled "Sophocles" and was completed in 1893. It depicts the famed Greek playwright as a statue. Editor: You know, my first thought is: imposing! Even as a drawing, it has this gravitas. There is so much detail, especially in the drapery. You can practically feel the weight of those folds. Curator: The classical drapery is deliberate; the toga is indicative of civic identity, and perhaps more personally here, a mantle of tragic vision. Note the subtle way Roerich captures the texture of the stone. It lends the drawing a three-dimensional quality. Editor: It also strikes me as incredibly...static. Of course, it's a statue, but I mean more than that. Sophocles, the actual, living, breathing human, must have been this tempest of thoughts and feelings to be able to produce those plays! Here he is frozen— literally calcified. I find it oddly unsettling. Curator: You're absolutely right, but I also believe it makes a point about enduring legacy. Sophocles’ works transcended his mortal coil; the image has become something larger, representing drama, even civilization itself. I read this drawing as an essay on time. Editor: I get that intellectually, but still, doesn’t it feel like he’s lost something too? Maybe that's what resonates, that trade-off between immediacy and permanence, presence and absence, that plagues every artist! Curator: Roerich certainly tapped into something profound here, that continuous cycle of presence and enduring symbol. Thank you, I will not see it the same way again. Editor: Same! It makes me want to grab my pencil. I need to process that in creative expression now, or it's going to keep haunting me.