Great rider. Rigden Jyepo - Messenger of Shambhala 1927

Nicholas Roerich made this tempera on canvas painting, Great Rider, Rigden Jyepo - Messenger of Shambhala, a while ago, and when you look at it, you can feel him trying to capture something otherworldly. The color palette is so interesting, a mix of earthy oranges and browns with this intense blue that makes you think about the heavens. The rider and his steed are cutting through clouds like butter, surrounded by these almost cartoonish swirls. What was Roerich thinking as he worked? Maybe he wanted to create a portal, a tangible link between the earthly and the divine. There's this incredible tension between flatness and depth, the way the figures are rendered almost like cutouts against a vast, infinite backdrop. Painting is so material, and yet it can evoke the most immaterial things—hope, spirituality, the yearning for something beyond our grasp. It’s a conversation, and Roerich is saying something really profound here.