Tale # 40 Roerich N.K. (Part 3)

Description of Nikolai Roerich’s painting "Fairy Tale

Roerich loved nature very much, it affected his work and in his words. He used to say, "Keep it simple and love nature!" You can see this love for all the forces of nature in each of his paintings. This painting depicts a very simple looking landscape that becomes more complex the longer one looks at it. It makes you think of something of your own while keeping your eyes on the magical view that opens up.

The foreground depicts a large eminence of rocks. It is most likely a natural rock, as if assembled by the hands of huge giants. Many huge boulders, stacked one on top of the other, form an elevation of dark gray-blue color. At the very top of this elevation sprouted several stunted but incredibly resilient trees. Each of them had gone through many hardships to avoid dying in this harsh rocky terrain. In the distance from the surviving trees there is a small sprout. It’s hard to tell if it’s a fresh shoot or a broken stump of a once-existing tree, but it’s eye-catching.

In front of the rock stretches a yellow-green glade, it reminds us of autumn with its golden-green grass. A little further away, a large tree grows, seemingly a real giant compared to those plants that grow on the rock. Farther away, beyond the tree, there is a view of the sea, slightly illuminated by the setting sun. The bay, which somewhere on the horizon is dark blue, closer to the shore is pink and white. And the sky above it all is soft pink, pristine, like the beginning of a good fairy tale.