Brahmaputra 1945

Nicholas Roerich made this oil on canvas painting of the Brahmaputra river, now hanging in Moscow, out of soft blues, purples, and golds. Look closely, and you’ll see he's built up these layers of pigment, stroke after stroke, to create a vista that almost shimmers. I'm sure it wasn't easy. When you're painting a scene like this, you're trying to capture something that's always moving and changing. I bet Roerich was constantly adjusting his colors and brushstrokes to try to capture the right light. It makes me think about other painters, like Hilma af Klint, who were also exploring spiritual and mystical themes in their work. Roerich's painting is part of this larger conversation about how art can connect us to something beyond ourselves, and to each other. It also makes me wonder if the way the gold light hits the river is his way of alluding to other landscape painting traditions. Food for thought.