Tanais Gallery
Svetoslav Roerich. Portrait of Nicholas Roerich in a Tibetan Robe.
1933 (on loan). Tempera on canvas. 152,4 x 124,5.
Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York, USA.
From his young age Svetoslav has shown a great talent of a brilliant portraitist with a unique ability of a subtle and deep penetration into the inner world of a person, ability to discover Eternal in the temporary, outer image.
The gallery of portraits created by Svetoslav Roerich is enormous; especially noticeable among them are the precious images of his parents. One of the most beautiful ones is a portrait of his father Nicholas Roerich.
Svetoslav Roerich is a painter after the grand manner of his father, but his individual uniqueness is no less great than his father's. He, too, is a mystic-dreamer – in the most practical sense of the word.
His art is called by many as a kind of Yoga, the Yoga of Beauty, another pathway to Moksha or Liberation, and that is according to Indian sacred scriptures, the real purpose of all art: not only to please senses, emotions and mind, but also to lead one to a realm of a high spiritual experience.
The name of the Russian painter Nicholas Roerich occupies a honorable place in the history of Russia and the world Culture of the 20th century.
The range of Nicholas Roerich’s activities is extraordinarily wide.
A painter, archaeologist, ethnographer, lawyer, geographer, poet, historian, philosopher, scientist, traveler, fighter for peace, defender of cultural values of all nations and, invariably, Man who has devoted his whole self to the ideal of the Common Good.
As an artist, Nicholas Roerich has created more than 7000 works, that has dispersed all over the world, adding to the glory of Russian culture. He worked in the sphere of monumental and applied arts and has become famous as an author of scenographies and drawings, and he left the whole series of sketches for furniture, costumes, and embroideries. And this entire diverse heritage is hallmarked with a great original talent.
Nicholas Roerich’s world-outlook is unique, for it is founded upon the knowledge of the fundamental laws of Existence. He was convinced that by increasing the level of masses’ spiritual culture one could transform the life on Earth and defeat ignorance, vulgarity, exploitation and wars.
“Where there is culture”, the artist wrote, “there is peace there. There is a heroic deed, there is the right solution of the most complicated social problems. While culture is only a luxury, only the Christmas pudding, it would not yet improve life. Culture should come into the closest everyday life, in both a cabin and a palace.”
“Culture and peace is the sacred stronghold of all mankind.”
“Culture of the spirit stands upon all boundaries.”
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