Nikolai Konstantinovich Roerich

Roerich Museum, New York, 1924–1935
Nettie and Louis Horch, USA

New York , Roerich Museum permanent collection, 1924–1935, no. 479

List of Nicholas Roerich Paintings, 1917–1924. Autograph, Nicholas Roerich Museum archive, New York, no.19.
F. Grant et al. Roerich, Himalaya, A Monograph. New York: Brentano Publ., 1926, p.199 (reproduced p.191)
Roerich Museum Catalogue. New York: Roerich Museum, 1930, p.21
A.V.Yaremenko, Nicholai Konstantinovich Roerich: His Life and Creations During the Past Forty Years, New York: Central Book Trading Co., 1931, p.38 (illustrated pl. 91)
Y.Petrova,  A Time to Gather: Russian Art from Foreign Private Collections, 2007, p.125, no.80, (illustated)

The canvas has been lined. There are a few minor areas of paint shrinkage in places e.g. to the right of the flag and lower left corner. UV light reveals some spots of retouching in the left hand quadrant around and below the figure and to the area to the right of the flagpole. Held in a gold painted wooden frame behind plexiglass. Unexamined out of frame.
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After his arrival in India in late 1923, Roerich produced close to one hundred canvases, strikingly different from his previous work, in less than a year. He developed his new style of painting, responding to the grandeur of the Himalayan vistas and glorified artifices of the Buddhist tradition. Sangacheling is part of his Sikkim series of 13 paintings, which he completed while travelling in the region, and it is one of the finest examples of the new style, marked for its freshness of perspective and forceful execution.

Roerich, who was interested in philosophical aspects of Buddhism at the time, is inspired here by his visit to one of the oldest and most important monasteries of Sikkim, situated near the little town of Pelling. Founded in 1705, Sangacheling (Sangachoeling) adheres to the Nyingma tradition, the oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. He remarks, "An interesting monastery is Sanga Chelling... there are no relics, but there rests a stone made sacred by the blessing of the founder; when the life of the monastery is unalloyed, the stone is firm, but each deviation makes the stone creak."

The composition invokes a parallel with a ship, with the monk as its captain. Sitting on a rock that looms over a precipice, he has the support of the teachings, symbolized by stupas, but he will ultimately be the one who will determine the future of his own spirit, and that of Buddhism. Mirroring Roerich's words, if the monk's spirit cracks, the stone breaks.

Roerich displays his skill and new vision in the quality of his lines. They are the focus, with almost no detail in the surfaces. It allows him to suffuse the painting with a yellow light, a significantly symbolic colour in Buddhism, and to convey the strength of the monk's spirit, as it it subtly balances the enormous stupas.

We are grateful to Gvido Trepša, Senior Researcher at The Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York for providing this note.