Heat of the Earth 1918

Nicholas Roerich’s ‘Heat of the Earth’ is a painting made with oil on canvas, but when is unknown. Roerich’s dramatic use of red and blue makes this painting zing! I imagine him standing at the easel, building up the painting in layers, responding to the emerging forms, almost like a conversation. I sympathize with that struggle to translate something felt onto the canvas. That single figure, emerging from the landscape, strikes me. I wonder, was he thinking about history, myth, or some kind of visionary experience? There is a real intensity of emotion in the bold, unblended strokes, a kind of urgency, maybe even spiritual searching. He knew how to make paint sing, how to make it breathe with life. And in that way, painters keep each other alive, like an ongoing conversation across time.