Vignette for book "N. K. Roerich" 1918

This vignette for a book on Nicholas Roerich is made in black and white, with all these intriguing shapes carved into it. I imagine the artist hunched over a block, carefully chiseling away at the surface. It’s an amazing dance between control and accident, a real back-and-forth as the image emerges. I feel like this process is so different from the directness of painting where the marks are immediate. With printmaking, there's this delayed reveal as the artist only sees the result once the block meets paper. Here, the contrast is so strong. It reminds me of early modernist graphics, where the image is reduced to its essence. The details are minimal, but those trumpets blowing! You can almost hear the fanfare. It's like Roerich wanted to capture a feeling, a mood, rather than depicting reality. It’s a reminder that art doesn’t always need to mimic life. Sometimes, it’s about creating its own world.