Roerich’s talent of a painter resurrected
ancient images of the Slavic land. Slavs were not primitive
savages. Their diverse labor, development of the social order are shown in Building a Town, Building the Ships, Slavs on
the Dnieper, Gathering tribute
and many other paintings based on deep knowledge of historical material.
"When addressing the topics of prehistory, N.Roerich
reveals the formation of the human principle, the growth of consciousness,
talks about creative discoveries, inventions of primitive people, finds peculiar
beauty in them, poeticises the bright world around them," wrote Boris Mikhaylovsky.
Featuring the old days, Roerich almost asks the question if we have lost something indispensable, if we have ignored that ‘antiquity’, that never gets old? The artist wanted to depict harmonious work, an aspiration for creativity: "...every creation brings collaboration. This sonorous concept [...] contains living framework that confronts the forces of destruction. Where there is cooperation, there is mutual help, there, beyond conventional treatises, an improvement of life is born "
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| Building the Ships, 1903. Location: Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York |