Jeanne d'Arc 1931

Nicholas Roerich created this painting, Jeanne d'Arc, with oil on canvas. I love the way the colours are divided, and how a vertical logic separates the central image of Madonna and child in stained glass from two opposing camps. The scene feels both historical and totally made up. I wonder how Roerich felt making this work, if it emerged slowly, with layers, or whether it was all there in one go, like a vision. The image itself might have come to him in pieces, like collage. I can almost imagine him thinking, what if I did a religious icon, but like, with the kind of feeling you get from early abstraction? Like, what if it was a battlefield, and a dream at the same time? The brown earth, like the bottom of a painting, is almost all there is—a base that holds these dreams up. It makes me feel like he was thinking about past painters, and also making something very new.