Maitreya 1932

Nicholas Roerich painted this piece, Maitreya, with what looks like tempera or maybe gouache. Roerich is going for something beyond just representation. The mountains in the background are simplified, right? Like geometric forms stacked on top of each other, and he’s playing with this limited palette of blues, greens, and earthy tones. It's less about capturing a realistic landscape and more about evoking a mood, a sense of spiritual depth. Look at the figure in the foreground. It’s a rough sculpture, monumental and iconic, painted in flat golden tones. Roerich uses color and form to distill the essence of the scene, making it feel both ancient and timeless. It’s as if he’s trying to capture the feeling of being in a sacred place, rather than just painting a picture of one. It reminds me of Hilma af Klint, someone else who found a pictorial language to express spirituality. What they both did was leave lots of room for the ineffable, a recognition that a painting is always an unfinished thought.