Speaking of Russian orientalists (see previous post about Vasily Vereshchagin) one cannot go past the great Nicholas Roerich. He is, by general agreement, the greatest of the Russian spiritual artists who turned his gaze and journeyed to the east. The present writer recalls his great enthusiasm when he first encountered Roerich's work. It was like finding a painter about whom he had dreamed; Roerich painted pictures that the author had sensed and imagined before he had seen them, works that he felt belonged in the world, works with an innate correctness. He remembers introducing these works to an acquaintance and she was merely ho-hum about them, underwhelmed. She was wrong and petty. What a lost opportunity! These are glowing works with an exceptional quality. They are works to which the present writer keeps returning again and again. Most recently, through a long chain of associations, he came back to Roerich's picture of Lord Krishna. It remains a favourite - archetypal Roerich:
Roerich occupies a special place in Russian cultural history - he was a passionate defender of Russian heritage. The October Revolution and the rise of Lenin and his philistines, however, saw him exiled to Finland, then London, then America before undertaking the so-called "Asian Expedition" in the years 1925 to 1929. Along with his wife Helena, Roerich toured through vast areas of Asia. The itinerary took them through (in Roerich's words) "Sikkim through Punjab, Kashmir, Ladakh, the Karakoram Mountains, Khotan, Kashgar, Qara Shar, Urumchi, Irtysh, the Altai Mountains, the Orygot regions of Mongolia, the Central Gobi, Kansu, Tsaidam and Tibet." The paintings from this expedition and later paintings inspired by this expedition are especially wonderful. Here are a few:
No one captures the spiritual power of the Himalayas and the Central Asian plateau like Nicholas Roerich. Painting in tempera, these are works of great spiritual depth. There is a superb collection of Roerich's mountain paintings in the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.
He was, all the same, a man of eccentric ideas. Quite apart from his artistic undertakings, his stated mission during the great Asian Expedition was to rouse the Boodhists of the region into creating a utopian society allied, oddly enough, to the Soviet Union. He seems to have been assisted in this by the Soviet Secret Service, a peculiar episode in the Great Game. He was not especially political in his motivations; rather he harboured mystical views about a new civilisation arising from Central Asia. It was not an uncommon view in his time, promoted by Madame Blavatsky and other Russians of a mystical bent. The idea of Tibet and Central Asia as a great repository of the spiritual heritage of mankind was a persistent theme in European and Russian ideas throughout the 19th C. and in fact up until recent times. In part, it underpins the contemporary popularity of Tibetan Boodhism in the West.
Roerich and his wife borrowed ideas from Theosophy and crafted them into their own idiosyncratic philosophy. It still survives in the form of "Agni Yoga" the headquarters of which remains in New York city. See here: http://agniyoga.org/
Roerich occupies a special place in Russian cultural history - he was a passionate defender of Russian heritage. The October Revolution and the rise of Lenin and his philistines, however, saw him exiled to Finland, then London, then America before undertaking the so-called "Asian Expedition" in the years 1925 to 1929. Along with his wife Helena, Roerich toured through vast areas of Asia. The itinerary took them through (in Roerich's words) "Sikkim through Punjab, Kashmir, Ladakh, the Karakoram Mountains, Khotan, Kashgar, Qara Shar, Urumchi, Irtysh, the Altai Mountains, the Orygot regions of Mongolia, the Central Gobi, Kansu, Tsaidam and Tibet." The paintings from this expedition and later paintings inspired by this expedition are especially wonderful. Here are a few:
No one captures the spiritual power of the Himalayas and the Central Asian plateau like Nicholas Roerich. Painting in tempera, these are works of great spiritual depth. There is a superb collection of Roerich's mountain paintings in the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.
He was, all the same, a man of eccentric ideas. Quite apart from his artistic undertakings, his stated mission during the great Asian Expedition was to rouse the Boodhists of the region into creating a utopian society allied, oddly enough, to the Soviet Union. He seems to have been assisted in this by the Soviet Secret Service, a peculiar episode in the Great Game. He was not especially political in his motivations; rather he harboured mystical views about a new civilisation arising from Central Asia. It was not an uncommon view in his time, promoted by Madame Blavatsky and other Russians of a mystical bent. The idea of Tibet and Central Asia as a great repository of the spiritual heritage of mankind was a persistent theme in European and Russian ideas throughout the 19th C. and in fact up until recent times. In part, it underpins the contemporary popularity of Tibetan Boodhism in the West.
Roerich and his wife borrowed ideas from Theosophy and crafted them into their own idiosyncratic philosophy. It still survives in the form of "Agni Yoga" the headquarters of which remains in New York city. See here: http://agniyoga.org/
Yours,
Harper McAlpine Black
Harper McAlpine Black
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