Leading Roerich N.K. (Part 6)
Roerich N.K. – Leading
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Location: The State Museum of Oriental Art, Moscow (Государственный музей искусства народов Востока).
Nicholas Roerich’s work entitled "Leading" shows the important quality that is inherent in wives in the lives of husbands. After all, he dedicated this painting to his life partner, Helena Ivanovna. If you go deeper into the artist’s biography, we know that his wife was for him a kind of mentor in life. He was a great success, and his wife was a great mentor to him in his life. In addition to science, she devoted most of her life to her husband.
A description of Nikolai Roerich’s painting "The Host"
Nicholas Roerich’s work entitled "Leading" shows the important quality that is inherent in wives in the lives of husbands. After all, he dedicated this painting to his life partner, Helena Ivanovna. If you go deeper into the artist’s biography, we know that his wife was for him a kind of mentor in life.
He was a great success, and his wife was a great mentor to him in his life. In addition to science, she devoted most of her life to her husband. Together they went through all the hard trials that fate had prepared for them.
The picture reminds us of an excerpt from a Soviet cartoon. It is as if a character from a fairy tale appeared before us. The blue coloring of the woman, and the clothing of the young man as if he were an excerpt from "The Snow Queen", but this is far from it. The young man’s clothing is typical of the garb of peasants of the 18th and 19th centuries.
The young man, scrambling after his companion, extends his hand to her. She, on the other hand, condescendingly, with her hands on her chest, waits for him with her head slightly bent down. They are in the middle of snowy mountains. This can be understood about the highlands covered with snow.
With this work, the artist highlighted a certain moment from his own life. After all, with his wife, Elena Ivanovna, he went through the mountains of the Himalayas on one of his journeys. And his companion was for Svyatoslav Nikolayevich the support, which is so necessary in the difficult trials of life. After that, the painting "Leading" was born.
The painting was acclaimed in the ’70s, when Svyatoslav Nikolaevich, son of the artist, brought it to the Soviet Union. The first demonstration of it was on the centennial of Roerich’s father.
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Two figures are positioned near the base of these monumental structures. One appears to be a man in dark clothing, his posture suggesting weariness or perhaps resignation. Beside him stands a figure draped in white robes, their face obscured, seemingly leading the way forward. The scale difference between the human forms and the landscape emphasizes the insignificance of individuals against the immensity of nature.
The artist’s use of simplified shapes and flattened perspective creates an almost dreamlike quality. There is a deliberate lack of detail; textures are minimized, and contours are sharply defined, contributing to a sense of stylized abstraction rather than realistic representation. The upward thrust of the glacial forms directs the viewers gaze towards the upper portion of the canvas, reinforcing the feeling of aspiration or perhaps unattainable goals.
Subtly, the painting evokes themes of journey, guidance, and the confrontation with overwhelming forces. The white-robed figure could be interpreted as a symbol of hope, faith, or destiny, while the darker figure represents doubt or burden. The black void at the bottom might symbolize an unknown future or the weight of past experiences. Overall, the work conveys a sense of quiet contemplation on human existence within a vast and indifferent universe.