Kardang 1933

Nicholas Roerich made Kardang with tempera on board, and what strikes me is how immediate it feels. I can almost see him there, squinting, mixing the paint just so, to get those muted blues and purples of the mountains. There’s a looseness to the way the peaks are defined that suggests he’s really looked, fixing the image in his mind, before starting. The paint is thin, almost translucent in places, letting the texture of the board come through, while other areas are built up, layered with subtle variations in tone. That little monastery perched on the hillside, it’s like a beacon, isn’t it? You get the sense of the artist's intention, and the way he’s captured the atmosphere of the place. It reminds me of other landscape painters, of course, but there’s something uniquely Roerich about it. Artists, we are always borrowing, stealing, riffing on each other's ideas. And I suppose that’s what keeps it all alive, that endless conversation across time.