Nicholas Roerich: From Himalayas to the Canvas

The text below is the excerpt of the book Nicholas Roerich (ISBN: 9781646999651), written by Kenneth Archer, published by Parkstone International.

‘The idea of east and west – the idea of the twain which shall never meet – is to our mind already a fossilized idea. We are already ashamed to believe that superficial walls can exist and can divide the best impulses of humanity, this impulse of creative evolution. And now before our eyes is the socalled west and the so-called east. Piercingly they look at each other. They can be the closest friends and co-workers.’ Nicholas Roerich, New York, 1929

The geographical scope of Roerich’s destiny made the wide dispersion of his paintings almost inevitable. They can be found in many countries, but the majority are located in Russia, India and the United States. Until a decade or so after Roerich died, those in Russia dated almost entirely from the years he worked there. Likewise, the Roerich paintings in India derive from the period of his residency in Asia. However, the works that are preserved in the United States cover the full span of his life- paintings from both east and west. After Roerich’s death, his sons, George and Svetoslav, arranged for substantial numbers of his canvases, some early and some late, to be given to what were then Soviet museums. The paintings at the Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York, comprise the only collection on permanent view in the United States.

About two hundred works are housed there. Although the collection represents more than forty years of the artist’s creativity, it is particularly strong in his Asian paintings from the 1930’s.

In this monograph thirty-two works from the Nicholas Roerich Museum have been selected for interpretation. They range chronologically from 1903 to 1944. The selection starts with Roerich’s years of aspiration, when as a young painter, recently married, he earned his living as the secretary of a cultural society, and it extends all the way through to his reflective last period when he was writing his memoirs. Each of the selected paintings captures a specific moment, revealing the artist’s present concerns, past influences and immediate sense of time and place in an unusually itinerant life. Events in the world around him make themselves felt in his painting through oblique images. This approach has roots in his early Symbolism, but it also issues quite naturally from his personality. Roerich was a contempl ative whose disposition was to communicate indirectly. His paintings invite interpretation, particularly in the context of biographical facts and current affairs. The monograph provides such information about each work, together with details of subject, theme and genre, media, palette and technique, some sources, patrons and provenance.

In Russia, Roerich undertook large scale works- monumental paintings, church mosaics, frescoes, murals and friezes for public buildings and private mansions. These projects were possible, Svetoslav Roerich said, because of the ateliers where his father directed ‘a whole group of very talented artists, like in . . . . the Renaissance period.’ Such formats were not feasible for Roerich in India, where he had no assistants and where he and his son, Svetoslav- by then an accomplished painter- worked alone in studios at their home in the Himalayas. But, in Europe and America, Roerich’s designs for ballet, opera and lyric theatre had been realized by scene shops for the huge proportions of the proscenium stage. Also in America he had created tall tryptics in stained glass for the multistorey Roerich Museum built in New York in 1929. The collection at the later Nicholas Roerich Museum, set up in a town house in 1958, is typical of the artist’s characteristic scale- small and medium sized easel paintings and theatrical designs, providing a singular introduction to his life and work.

To get a better insight into Nicholas Roerich, please continue this exciting adventure by clicking on:

Ebook

Hardcover

You can read the article: Roerich Pact and Banner Of Peace for your reference.

Let’s have a look at our Russian Art collection: