Nataliart

Nikolai Konstantinovich Roerich, a prominent Russian painter of the late-nineteenth — first quarter of the twentieth century, had lived an interesting and extraordinary life. A man of many talents, he was known not only as a painter but also as an archaeologist, a writer, a scholar studying ancient cultures of India and Tibet. He lived most of his life in Russia, but he also spent a few years working in the USA and Western Europe and more that twenty years in India.

Roerich's enormous artistic and literary heritage comprises more than four thousand pictures, several volumes of memoirs and treatises on ethics and morality, tales, poems and studies in archaeology. His legacy is studied now by specialists in art, humanities, history, archaeology and other fields.

Here, in this book, Roerich is presented mainly as a painter whose works have expressed the complexity philosophical and aesthetic issues of his time and of his own outlook. He was formed as an artist of the Russian modernism of the turn of the century with thematic orientation to Slavic paganism, Old Russian folklore, Skandinavian sagas and Indian legends. His artistic method is characteristically stylized and decorative.

Nikolai Roerich was born in St.Petersburg on the 9th of October 1874 in a family of a notary. His ancestors on the father's side were from a noble and old Swedish dynasty; they came to live at the Baltic sea in the times of Catherine the Great. His mother was from the Pskov merchants Kalashnikovs. Roerich be-longed to the Orthodox church. On graduation in 1893 of the famous St.Petersburg private gymnasium K.Mai, Roerich entered the law faculty of St.Petersburg University and, at the same time, the Academy Arts, where he studied in the class of the notable landscapist Arkhip Kuinji. In 1900—1901 Roerich continue his artistic education in Paris, studying historical painting. Coming back to Russia Roerich took part in the exhibitions of the artistic groups World of Art (Mir Iskusstva), Union of Russian Painters (Soyuz Russkikh Khudozhnikov) and Modern Art (Sovremennoye Iskusstvo).

In 1906—14, together with easel painting, Roerich made a great amount of sketches for mural paintings and mozaics in the churches of Russia and the Ukraine. It was at this period that he started a series of set designs for the theatres of St.Petersburg, Moscow, Paris and London. Later, Roerich worked at the sets of several opera and ballet performances in the theatres of Western Europe and the USA. Roerich also worked in decorative and applied arts, which was typical of the artistic tendency of the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries.

Already in the 1910s Roerich was reputed to be a specialist in the culture of India; it was on his initiative that the Buddist temple was built in St.Petersburg in 1909—15 by the architect G.Baranovsky. Roerich was also active in the propaganda of Old Russian culture: he published papers on the preservation of monuments of Russian antiquity, painted old churches in his pictures. In 1913 he took part in the construction of the Museum of Old Russian Arts and Life not far from St.Petersburg, in Tsarskoye Selo. The architect S.Kri-chinsky built specially for the purpose of the museum a small village, Fiodorovsky Gorodok (Fiodor's Town), a set of buildings styled as Old Russian boyar manor houses. Closed after the revolution, this village is being restored now.

Roerich was in a way linked with the literary circles of St.Petersburg — an aspect of his artistic career which is worth mentioning. The painter was close to the poets of Symbolism, Andrei Belyi, Alexander Blok and Valeri Briusov. They had much in common in terms of expressive colour and allegorical imagery in work of poetry and pictorial art.

During World War I the painter applied to the Russian government with a proposal to sign an interna-tional agreement on protection of cultural monument. But it was only in 1954, after Roerich's death, that the-so-called Pax Cultura was ratified at the conference in the Hague. In the war years Roerich, like many Russian painters, was actively engaged in charity functions; he gave substantial sums of money to the families of those killed and wounded at the front.

From 1906 to 1917 Roerich was the director and a teacher at the school affiliated to the Russian Society for the Promotion of Painters. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, he did a lot for the development of teaching methods. For a certain period of time he had Marc Shagal as his student.

In 1916—18, on medical advice connected with his lung disease, Roerich and family lived in Finland. In November 1918, on the invitation of the Swedish professor O.Bjork, he moved to Stockholm. This is the beginning of his exhibitions in Northern Europe, in Sweden, Finland and Denmark. His works gained invari¬able success and many pictures were sold to museums and private collections.

September 1920 found Roerich in the USA, where he had been invited by R.Harshe, director of Art Institute of Chicago. In December he triumphed in New York, his pictures showing Russia — unknown hitherto to American public — as a dream of spiritual beauty. The Americans were enchanted by the images of saints. Russian landscapes with white churches, walls of ancient towns. In the years 1920—23 his exhibition visited thirty American towns. Roerich's admirers founded the New York museum of his name, still extant, to which

Roerich had contributed with a big collection of pictures including works of the Russian period brought from St.Petersburg.

In 1921, in Berlin, appeared a collection of Roerich's poetry under the name Flowers of Moria, which contained verses written in 1907, 1911, and 1915—20. The royalty for the book was transferred to Russia, for the starving. The book is opened with the epigraph, full of deep significance, «Above all Russias there is one unforgettable Russia».

Roerich's life in America was very fruitful and productive not only in exhibitions but also in educational activities. In 1921—22 his energy and initiative brought to life the New York United Institute of Arts and Chicago arts centre Cor Ardens. Roerich was one of the organizers of New York international cultural centre named Corona Mundi by him and opened with an exhibition of his pictures painted in the USA. He had travelled all across the continent and also visited Mexico — the impressions of these were rendered in several pictorial series, like Arizona, New Mexico and the Ocean. The cultural centre later housed the exhibitions of the famous American artists, R.Henry, R.Kent, D.Sloan, M.Stern, etc. Roerich found many allies to his activities in America, he was supported by painters, musicians, and art critics, G.Jiles, D.Tablore, D.Bellows, K.Bragdon and M.Lichtman. His works were admired by the outstanding scientist Albert Einstein.

The successful cultural and educational activity of Roerich in America made it possible for him to organize a long-cherished expedition to India. There, he was followed by his wife Elena and sons Yury and Sviatoslav. His eldest son Yuri Roerich (1902—60) was a real genius in linguistics. In 1922, on graduation from Harvard university with a BA in Indian philology, he went to Paris and got his MA degree in Indian philology, becoming an expert in Sanscrit, Tibetian, Mongolian and Persian languages, also studying Pali and Chinese. Yury Roerich was of great help to his father during the expedition and, at the same time, he was turning into an independent researcher himself, to become eventually an orientalist of world fame.

Roerich's younger son, Sviatoslav (1904—93) was a painter.

On December 2, 1923 the Roerichs arrived in India. After visiting Bombay, Jaipur, Calcutta, Benares and a few other cities they came to the southern outskirts of East Himalayas, to Sikkim, a starting point of their expedition. During the expedition, in 1924, Roerich painted several series of pictures, Sikkim, His Land and the Teachers of the East, altogether more than eighty works which he subsequently sent to the New York Roerich Museum. In September of this year he went to the USA to get the permission to continue the ex¬pedition under the American flag. Early in 1925 Roerich returned to the Himalayas and went in the Western direction. It is notable that the expedition took the route which had never been taken by any professional traveller, left aside an artist. They had discovered manuscripts of extraordinary rarity, ancient monuments of Tibetian culture, precious pieces of art. They were through several dramatic episodes. Thus, for example, in September 1925, at Ladak border the expeditions was attacked by the British police as the local authorities were suspicious of the Russian painter and his work; as a result seven servants were wounded.

Their further route lay through Karakorum Pass to Khotan and Chinese border. Roerich painted a lot of landscapes and pictures to the local legends, including the suite Maitreya. One hundred and eighty works from these parts were later sent to the New York Roerich Museum.

In May 1926 the expedition crossed the Tibet and came to lake Zaisan. There, having got the Soviet visas with the help of the People's Comissar B.Chicherin, the Roerichs crossed the Russian border on May 29 and already on June 13 they were in Moscow. Roerich's arrival was widely reported in the newspapers and the success of his art in the USA and his expedition were much commented on. Soon Roerich got from the Soviet government a permission to explore the Altai, had all the necessary papers ready and the family left for the Altai, to Upper Uimon. In September they moved to Ulhan-Ude and after it to the capital of Mongolia.

Ulhan-Bator where they had completed the preparations for the expedition through Tibetan uplands to kim. In August 1927 they explored the Hor region connected with the great nomadic epic of King Kesar discovered new manuscripts which enriched the study of this legendary hero.

Because of some problems with the official papers the caravan was kept in detention for the winter months in the encampment of Chu-na-khe where severe frosts killed servants and many yaks and camels. Despite the hardships the Roerichs went on with their studies and discovered in the nearby monasteries old Tibetian scriptures and literary monuments. Both in Mongolia and the Tibet Roerich continued painting: one hundred and seven pictures of the Mongolian series were sent to the New York museum. In the spring of 1928 expedition crossed the Trans-Himalayas in the direction of Sikkim. On May 28 they entered Darjeeling.

Roerich made up his mind to stay in India and work over the materials of the expedition there. December 1928 he rented from the Rajah Mandi a manor house in the Kulu valley near Nagar and took his residence there together with his family and a horde of servants. On Roerich's initiative there was founded the Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute of Roerich Museum for the scholars of India, America and Eng-land. It was subsidized by the Indian government and part of the expences was covered from Roerich's personal funds.

In 1929 Nikolai Roerich together with his son Yuri made a tour of Europe and America for academic contacts with orientalist scholars. In 1934 Roerich was again in the USA, this time on the invitation of the American Minister of agriculture, who made a proposal to Roerich to organize an expedition to the Gobi desert and the outskirts of the Hingan mountains with the purpose of collecting drought-resisting plants and herbs. The expedition took place in 1935 and resulted in about two hundred parcels with seeds sent to USA.

In the 1930s, already a permanent resident of India, Roerich undertook several expeditions to North-West China, to Manchuria and Japan to study their ancient culture. He also visited Harbin, Peking and Shanghai.

During these years in India Roerich painted several thousand works, landscapes and pictures to the top of old Tibetian and Indian legends. At the same time, he kept returning to the images of Russian saints and historical characters. In his pictures we can see Yaroslav the Wise, Alexander Nevsky, Sergy of Radonezh SS Boris and Gleb, St.Nicholas, St. Pantaleon the Healer. In India he wrote a few books of which the m well-known are The Altai — Himalayas with his impressions of the expeditions and My Life. Pages of a Diary memoirs in the form of essays, only partly published. Together with his wife Elena the painter made ready for publication the series Ethics in Living dedicated mainly to questions of morality and ethics.

During World War II Roerich made a number of pictures after Old Russian epic tales «bylinas» and wrote a lot of articles with memories of Russia. He also organized exhibitions to help the Soviet army.

In his later years the painter continued writing his memoirs, having written seven hundred and fifty essays between 1936 and 1947. He was in constant correspondence with the well-known Russian art historian Igor Grabar, whom he had known already in his years in St. Petersburg. Roerich dreamt of returning to his motherland but he was never to get the permission. He died on December 13, 1947 in Kulu. The place where he was cremated is marked with a tomb-stone which reads that Roerich was the great Russian friend of India.

Roerich's works are scattered all over the world and are kept in a variety of museums and private col-lections, the most numerous collection being in the USA. In Russia his pictures are mainly assembled in the Russian Museum, St.Petersburg. His works are also to be found in Moscow, Novosibirsk, Smolensk, Nizhny Novgorod and other museums. In Izvara, the former country residence of the Roerichs not far from St.Pe-tersburg, the museum of the life and activity of the famous Russian painter has been opened.