"In the history of fine arts certain individuals have appeared from time to time, whose work has a unique and profound quality which differentiates them in any known category and to ally them with any school, because they resemble themselves only--and one another, like some spaceless and timeless order of initiates. Such were Leonardo, Rembrandt, Durer, Blake, and in other fields Beethoven, Balzac, Rodin…Roerich, in his life, in his character, and in his art reveals himself as a member of this fraternity."
--Claude Bragdon, French architect
Nicholas was a painter, poet, anthropologist, explorer, diplomat, mystic, artist, lecturer, and costume designer--a Renaissance man in a divine sense--according to Frances R. Grant, one of Roerich's earliest American followers.
His paintings, which total more than seven thousand, are on permanent display at the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York. They have been shown throughout India and parts of Europe, including the Louvre in Paris, as well as in Chicago, Atlanta, and Oakland. More recently, Roerich's works have been on display for over a year at the Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow, in an exhibit which later will tour the Soviet Union. This exhibit commemorates the fiftieth year of the Roerich Pact and the Banner of Peace--a symbol meant to preserve museums and places of cultural development, similar to the Red Cross symbol that protects hospitals in times of war.
According to Daniel Entin the Executive director of the Roerich Museum, who attended the exhibit, thousands of Russians visited the display. Many waited in lines for up to four hours in the rain before entering the gallery. "There was an awestruck silence as you might sense in a cathedral," Entin noted.
Whereas in the early twenties and thirties Roerich's fame captivated the hearts of artists, musicians, politicians and students to the extent that his Master School of United Arts became the place to unite all arts under one roof, only recently have many people learned about Roerich. Indeed, many of his best paintings from his expedition to India from 1923 to 1928 hang, relatively unnoticed, on the walls of a three-story brownstone building located in New York's upper West Side. Says one admirer, "Roerich's paintings are one of the best kept secrets in the United States." However, the secret is not intentional, and after viewing his works, one wonders--why?
Perhaps this will change. After the success of the Roerich exhibition last April at Ogelthorpe University in Atlanta, one might think so. More than three thousand people attended. Atlanta magazine listed it as the number-one event of the month. Religious groups of many denominations--Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and Rosicrucian--attended. Again, visitors were described as behaving as if they were in church.
Again we have the question: Why the almost universal acceptance? Is it the breathtaking quality of his colors--their purity and intensity? Roerich's mark is deeply imbedded in Atlanta's culture. In fact, two of his books are in the Crypt of Civilization--the first time capsule of the Western nations--placed there in 1939 by the president of Ogelthorpe University, Thronwell
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