Celestial Battle

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Nicholas Roerich was interested in mysticism and was a passionate believer in the ideas of “all-unity” and “Russocosmism”. One of his favourite motifs was the ancient north — a bleak and uninhabited land of mighty hills and cold, clear lakes. Roerich’s paintings were regarded as insights into the archaic period of Indo-European civilisation.

The Celestial Battle is one of his finest works. Permeated with the divine light and “programmed” with the future history of the earth, the cumuli swirl rises above the distant figures of demons, messengers, knights on horseback, seafarers, sages and the silhouettes of the “prophecy stones”. Roerich portrays a hypostasis of a former golden age when man lived in harmony with himself and the cosmos.

We present today's beautiful landscape thanks to the State Russian Museum.

Today is Remembrance Day which celebrates the end of the First World War. What does Roerich have to do with  WWI? He was not only an artist but also the initiator of "The Treaty on the Protection of Artistic and Scientific Institutions and Historic Monuments" also  known as the "Roerich Pact". This Inter-American Treaty of 1935 was the first to protect cultural monuments and prioritise the defense of cultural artifacts from destruction for military purposes. Though the Treaty was initiated due to the atrocities of the First World War, it was all but forgotten during the Second World War.

P.S. The symbol of Remembrance Day is a poppy. See the most beautiful poppies in paintings for this special day here.