Shirin and Khosrau 1938

Nicholas Roerich painted "Shirin and Khosrau" with what looks like tempera or maybe gouache – something matte and opaque that just sits on the surface, bold as you like. Look how the painting's laid out, almost like a stage set. The mountains are these flat, stacked shapes, lavender and blue fading into the yellow sky. It's like a dream, not quite real, but full of feeling. The two figures in the foreground, they’re part of this dream too, their robes solid blocks of color. There's a little donkey down there on the bottom right, so small that it looks like an afterthought. It makes me think of Milton Avery – that same simplicity, that reduction to pure color. But Roerich, he's got this mystical thing going on. It’s a reminder that art isn’t about showing the world, but about making one. It's about the ongoing conversation between artists across time and place.