Dark-blue mountains and buildings on the hiil 1940

Nicholas Roerich made this drawing of mountains and buildings with what looks like pastel on paper. Look at how he layers those strokes. It's like he's building up the forms, one mark at a time, figuring it out as he goes, which is how I often feel when I'm painting. The blues and purples give the whole scene a kind of dreamlike, otherworldly feeling. But it's not just about the colors themselves, it's also about how Roerich uses the pastel. The way it sits on the paper, soft and powdery, like a memory fading at the edges. The building, perched on the mountaintop, is such a simple form, a few blocks of color, but it anchors the whole composition. I'm reminded of Marsden Hartley, another artist who was drawn to the spiritual power of mountains. But Roerich has his own thing going on. It's like he's inviting us to step into a space where the boundary between the real and the imagined blurs, and anything is possible.