Urusvati 1939

Nicholas Roerich made this landscape, Urusvati, with what looks like thin layers of oil paint. It gives off such a peaceful vibe. I'm imagining Roerich layering the paint, one colour at a time, building up the mountain and sky with subtle shifts in tone. It’s a way of capturing the light as it hits the mountain, a fleeting moment of colour and atmosphere. I’m thinking he must have been contemplating something bigger than himself at the time. I keep thinking about the way the blue in the mountain fades into the orange on its peak, and the meeting of cool and warm. These kinds of paintings are experiments, the artists are often onto something, and they're chasing the unchaseable.