Slavic land 1943

Nicholas Roerich made this painting, *Slavic land*, using oil paint to craft a vista in cool blues and yellows, framed as though viewed from a mountainside opening. I wonder what it felt like to be Roerich, looking at the mountains and wanting to fix them in paint. What did he want to capture? I imagine him carefully mixing the blues to get that right sense of hazy distance. He’s really stacking up those mountains, one behind another, and they fade into the sky like thoughts receding in time. Look at how the colors almost merge. That figure on the left, the wise man contemplating the scene, he makes me think about all the artists who’ve gazed at landscapes, trying to understand their place in the world. Painters are always talking to one another, aren’t they? Each brushstroke is a tiny gesture in a long, ongoing conversation.