30.01.2022

Publication of archival materials from the IRMT Collection, dedicated to the Memory Day of Svetoslav Roerich (1904-1993)

“I have no doubt he will enrich our art and give joy to thousands of people. We wish him long life.”   

19th February, 1960 

Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan,

Indian philosopher and statesman,

second President of India

Prospectus for the exhibition of paintings by Svetoslav Roerich

at the Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore, India, 1987

Exhibition of Paintings

Dr. S. Roerich

“Svetoslav Nikolaievich has been captivated by the charm and mystery of Indian myth and the scenery of the Orient; the very hills of the Himalayas, rugged and misty, suggest infinite and unconquered adventure; and the handsome aborigine women, with their lovely, slender bodies hint at hidden happiness”.

Dr. Charles L.Fabri

“He aims in his art to realise and interpret the grandeur and beauty of the Universe in its integral unity with the inner world of man”.

Mr. V.F. Loevinson-Lessing,

Deputy Director of The Heritage Museum,

Leningrad

 “His portraits are not mere representations but catch the spirit of the human face divine. His landscapes are poems of colour. I have no doubt he will enrich our art and give joy to thousands of people. We wish him long life”.

Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

A Profile

Art for Svetoslav is a mode of dialogue with the self. As one glances through his voluminous output of works, it is easy to see that he is never ensnared by art’s exchange values which has in more than one way gripped his contemporaries spanning more than two generations. Obviously, he had developed the right instincts in rejecting a dialogue with the run of the mill artists in the same way as his illustrious farther Prof. Nicholas Roerich had done. Indeed, neither of them have liked the patronising tone of European art. Their identity with the oriental ideas in art was complete, an identity which found its cultural moorings in the lofty Himalayas and the lush valley of Kulu amidst the snow peaks.

That romantic setting, its snow-clad hills and rustic people attracted him, as it had done his farther earlier, and involved him into a mystical relationship. In fact, in terms of expression, Svetoslav achieved a mystic sensuality that is rare in contemporary styles of painting, Again that captivating landscape which represents a kind of presence in itself in a world of its own, held him in a religious bond as it were. That is how he became a natural painter, one who is a representative of that presence as it happens in music or literature. But Svetoslav has surpassed musicians and litterateurs in energy and profoundity. He is a genius and it may seem an enquiry that the term “romantic” may become too narrow to define him. Perhaps, the alternative is to define him as “Romanticist”.

Svetoslav was born in 1904 in St. Petersburg in Russia. He is the son of Prof. Nicholas Roerich, a many sides genius who was described by many as a “Rishi”.

With such a background, he could have developed equally well as a painter, a musician or a poet and though he has retained an acute sensibility in all of them, he was destined to be a painter as it is in that mode that he realised he could express himself best. Hence his graduation from the School of Architecture at the Harvard University (U.S.A.) after his formal education in England and America.

Svetoslav’s appearance even now when he is well past his prime is striking. His fair complexion, wellcut and groomed silky beard, high forehead, his bright looking deep eyes and delicate lips, his powerful chin, all together point to a physiognomy of strength and beauty which are at once benign, exotic and magnetic. When he speaks one finds a charming civility in his manners which is disarming. At the same time, one can see in him the Enlightened man, a perfect gentleman, an outstanding personage par excellence.

Svetoslav is a widely travelled man. That has helped him to understand men and matters in their right perspective. There is hardly any individual of renown of his times, covering over two generations that he has not known. At the same time, he has befriended artists of all descriptions, workmen, academicians and statesmen of all countries. They have all showered appreciation and praises unequivocally on his attainments. Likewise, he has been described variously as a classicist, a romanticist, a philosopher as also a poet among artists. That is something characteristic of all great artists which merely shows how difficult it is in the case of personages like Svetoslav to use a label. For in as much as a genius depends on the physical and emotional feature of one type that will seek to create the intellectual features of the other type.

These features can be seen as much in his compositions as in his portraits, one as significant as the other. If his compositions like “Evening in Rajaputana” denote a freshness of attitude, accounting as much for a sensuous palette as to evoking intellectual pleasure in the viewer, his portraits like those of Madam Devika Rani his beautiful wife, and Jaya a simple village girl on his farm speak for his academic expertise. They are studies that bring out the inherent beauty of the personality, evoking nostalgia in the viewer.

It is gratifying that this artist much respected the world over, lives in Bangalore amidst us. We are happy that he has agreed to show a few of his works at the Chitrakala Parishath the edifice for art for which his counsel and guidance have played a very significant role. It is a fitting and happy occasion when the Central Lalit Kala Akademi will confer on this International artist of India, on October 16, at Bangalore its coveted Fellowship.

S.N. Chandrasekhar

(From the IRMT Archive)

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Fragments from Svetoslav Roerich's essay "Spirit of the Himalayas" 

published in an Indian newspaper Cochin Argus

“…Throughout the world, whenever the word “Himalayas” is pronounced, people become attentive, and a special eagerness and expectation light up their countenance. It is not only the concept of tremendous heights, the call of unconquered peaks, uncharted glaciers and valleys or the unbelievable richness of vegetation and animal kingdoms, there is something else besides these outward attractions, there is a greater and deeper significance the word “Himalayas” conveys to the listeners, as if an unseen spiritual influences live in this very word, a special magnet which made the Himalayas the great centre of spiritual pilgrimage…”

“…The great Rishis directed their holy quest towards the Himalayas. Mighty teachings and doctrines were born under their towering peaks. Is it not strange that throughout the world the Great Teachers of whatsoever race or faith, have always gone to the heights to receive some of their greatest revelations? Does height, does eternal snow, the rarified atmosphere contribute towards grater lucidity, or is it in order to rise above the sphere of the turmoil of life?”

“Those of you who have climbed great heights know how active becomes your mind, how light and even unnecessary becomes sleep. Are these some of the qualities that attracted the great searchers after truth from time immemorial?” 

Pure thoughts are born in pure places, in places unsullied by the lower selfish passions generated in the struggle for existence and self-gratification…”

(From the IRMT Archive)

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