Передвижные выставки: Выставка "Гималаи-Тибет"

Nicholas Roerich’s painting

Nicholas Roerich (1874 – 1947) is an outstanding Russian artist, thinker, scientist, writer, public figure. There are over seven thousand paintings created by N. Roerich. Having been scattered all over the world, they are now preserved in museums and private collections. Nicholas Roerich began his creative career in Russia and completed in India. He was interested in the common roots of the Slavs and the Indo-Iranians. Both in artistic creation and in research activities of the artist, Russia and the East, the world of ancient Indian culture and thought, invariably go together. The great master adhered to these inclinations in his creative work all his life long.

The years when N. Roerich was in Russia proved to be a remarkable example of human dedication and achievement. In his paintings, the artist tried to depict the history of his Motherland and the creative power of the people. N. Roerich repeatedly turned himself to the image of the Builder of the united Russian lands and the bearer of spiritual culture, namely to St. Sergius of Radonezh (1314 – 1392). He created thousands of paintings and frescoes, performed mosaics for public buildings and churches, designed the scenery and costumes for opera and ballet performances. Some of his works for the theatre, for example, “Prince Igor” and “Sacred Spring”, staged in Paris by Diaghilev, became classics of theatrics.

Recognition and fame came to Roerich in the early period of his creative development. In 1919, he was voted as an academician into the Petersburg Academy of Arts. He offered a unique pictorial style of his own. N. Roerich is called the “master of the blue”; the blue of the eternal celestial expanse, so clear and clinking has been achieved by no one else. In his essay “The Power of Roerich” (1919), Leonid Andreyev pointed out the identity of Roerich’s art: ‘To view a painting by Roerich invariably means to see something new, something that one has nowhere seen yet.”

It is Nicholas Roerich’s individual feature to create series of paintings: Sancta (Sacred, 1922), Banners of the East (1924-1925) dedicated to the ascetics and saints.

In 1923, Roerich arrives in India. The artist wrote, “The series “His Country” is going to be completed, and the series “Banners of the East” to start. Against the background of the Himalayan peaks he reveales spiritual aspirations of numberless seekers after truth. 1925 through 1928, N. Roerich is on an expedition over Central Asia. While travelling, he paints the series Maitreya and shows in its canvases the Buddhist world of legends.

Roerich works in the Himalayas, and the world of this “Abode of Snow” becomes an inexhaustible source of his inspiration. Art critics noted this and called the painter “master of mountains”, marking a new direction in his creative work. N. Roerich hourly observes the Himalayas by day and by night and depicts the mountains on his canvases. In the early morning, he paints a sunrise – those “glittering peaks”, when the snow starts brightening with dazzling light in the pre-dawn gloom, which slowly descends into valleys. In his works, he also renders back a bright and fairy show of sunset when infinite mountain ranges turn violet in the rays of the setting sun. Before the viewer there passes the whole gamut of emotions excited with the mountain world that has always filled the master with enthusiasm. He loved mountains in all their aspects. His mind’s eye covered the immense world of mountains. In many painting, N. Roerich represented Kanchenjunga (Five Treasures of Great Snow), the second highest peak of the Himalayas.