Monhegan (study) 1922

Nicholas Roerich made this study of Monhegan with a pencil, as a step in his process, to get to the painting. You know, the beauty of a sketch lies in its immediacy. It's like the artist is thinking out loud, figuring things out as they go. Here, the lines are raw, almost fragile, capturing the starkness of the landscape. Look how the hatching and shading define the form of the rocks, giving them a sense of volume. You can almost feel the texture of the paper, right? The transparency of the medium makes the drawing feel light, airy. Notice the way Roerich has used the faintest of lines to capture the distant mountains, softening the horizon. It all reminds me of Guston's late drawings, simple and profound. It's amazing to consider the way that artists speak to one another, across the years. They remind us to embrace the messy and the imperfect, to find beauty in the process of becoming.