'You must feel!' commands the young lady. The gaze behind her stern, black-rimmed glasses is one of unsettling intensity. I focus on a cluster of three paintings and try to obey. 'Erm, they're beautiful,' I whisper furtively, only to be silenced with a withering glare.
We are standing in the middle of the Roerich exhibition at the Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts. 'Some people say Roerich, he is – how you say – saint.'
'A holy man?'
'Yes. His philosophia is in his painting. He lived in India. In 20's, he went to India, China, Altai, Tibet for five years. He have good mind inside his head. Later he make painting.' Paintings which would form the Himalayan series assembled for the exhibition – haunting scenes of various peaks through changing moods of weather and at various times of day, painted some 10-20 years after his initial expedition.
'My friend, he is alpinist,' continues the lady guide. 'He can tell the mountains.' I, on the other hand, am not an alpinist, and am all at sea when it comes to telling the peaks apart.
On the far side of the room is a large strip of cloth with three encircled red dots arranged in the form of an upward-pointing triangle. 'What is that?' I ask, to change the subject. 'That is the banner of peace. Roerich believed that when the spirit becomes like mountain top, there will be peace.' The summit as a symbol for the highest attainment of the soul – a noble thinker, this Roerich!
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