NICHOLAS ROERICH (1874-1947)
Kangchenjunga (8, 538m-28,169 ft)
India, Népal
Painted in 1933
Painted in 1933
Kangchenjunga (8,586 m (28,169 ft) is the third highest mountain in the world. It lies partly in Nepal and partly in Sikkim, India. Kangchenjunga is the second highest mountain of the Himalayas after Mount Everest. Three of the five peaks – Main, Central and South – are on the border between North Sikkim and Nepal. Two peaks are in the Taplejung District, Nepal.
Kangchenjunga Main is the highest mountain in India, and the easternmost of the mountains higher than 8,000 m (26,000 ft). Until 1852, Kangchenjunga was assumed to be the highest mountain in the world, but calculations based on various readings and measurements made by the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in 1849 came to the conclusion that Mount Everest, known as Peak XV at the time, was the highest. It is listed int the Eight Thousanders and as Seven Third Summits
Kangchenjunga is the official spelling adopted by Douglas Freshfield, A. M. Kellas, and the Royal Geographical Society that gives the best indication of the Tibetan pronunciation. Freshfield referred to the spelling used by the Indian Government since the late 19th century. There are a number of alternative spellings including Kangchendzцnga, Khangchendzonga, and Kanchenjunga. Local Lhopo people believe that the treasures are hidden but reveal to the devout when the world is in peril; the treasures comprise salt, gold, turquoise and precious stones, sacred scriptures, invincible armor or ammunition, grain and medicine. Kangchenjunga's name in the Limbu language is Senjelungma or Seseylungma, and is believed to be an abode of the omnipotent goddess Yuma Sammang.
It rises in a section of the Himalayas called Kangchenjunga Himal that is limited in the west by the Tamur River, in the north by the Lhonak Chu and Jongsang La, and in the east by the Teesta River. It lies about 128 km (80 mi) east of Mount Everest.
Allowing for further verification of all calculations, it was officially announced in 1856 that
Kangchenjunga was first climbed on 25 May 1955 by Joe Brown and George Band, who were part of a British expedition. They stopped short of the summit as per the promise given to the Chogyal that the top of the mountain would remain inviolate. Every climber or climbing group that has reached the summit has followed this tradition. Other members of this expedition included John Angelo Jackson and Tom Mackinon. In May 1979, Doug Scott, Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker established a new route on the North Ridge their third ascent which was the first one ever made without oxygen.
In 1983, Pierre Beghin made the first solo ascent accomplished without the use of supplemental oxygen. In 1992, Wanda Rutkiewicz was the first woman in the world to ascend and descend K2 and a world-renowned Polish climber, died after she insisted on waiting for an incoming storm to pass, which she did not survive. In 1998, Ginette Harrison was the first woman who climbed Kangchenjunga North face ; Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, an Austrian mountaineer, was the second woman to reach the summit in 2006.
In May 2014, the Bulgarian diabetic climber Boyan Petrov reached the peak without the use of supplemental oxygen.
The painter
Nicholas Roerich known also as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh (Никола́й Константи́нович Ре́рих) is quite an important figure of mountain paintings in the early 20th century. He was a Russian painter, writer, archaeologist, theosophist, perceived by some in Russia as an enlightener, philosopher, and public figure. In his youth was he was quite influenced by a movement in Russian society around the occult and was interested in hypnosis and other spiritual practices. His paintings are said to have hypnotic expression.
Born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, he lived in various places around the world until his death in Naggar, Himachal Pradesh, India. Trained as an artist and a lawyer, his main interests were literature, philosophy, archaeology, and especially art. After the February Revolution of 1917 and the end of the czarist regime, Roerich, a political moderate who valued Russia's cultural heritage more than ideology and party politics, had an active part in artistic politics. With Maxim Gorky and Aleksandr Benois, he participated with the so-called "Gorky Commission" and its successor organization, the Arts Union (SDI).
After the October Revolution and the acquisition of power of Lenin's Bolshevik Party, Roerich became increasingly discouraged about Russia's political future. During early 1918, he, Helena, and their two sons George and Sviatoslav emigrated to Finland. After some months in Finland and Scandinavia, the Roerichs relocated to London, arriving in mid-1919. Later, a successful exhibition resulted in an invitation from a director at the Art Institute of Chicago, offering to arrange for Roerich's art to tour the United States. During the autumn of 1920, the Roerichs traveled to America by sea. The Roerichs remained in the United States from October 1920 until May 1923.
After leaving New York, the Roerichs – together with their son George and six friends – began the five-year-long 'Roerich Asian Expedition' that, in Roerich's own words: "started from Sikkim through Punjab, Kashmir, Ladakh, the Karakoram Mountains, Khotan, Kashgar, Qara Shar, Urumchi, Irtysh, the Altai Mountains, the Oyrot region of Mongolia, the Central Gobi, Kansu, Tsaidam, and Tibet" with a detour through Siberia to Moscow in 1926.
In 1929 Nicholas Roerich was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the University of Paris. He received two more nominations in 1932 and 1935. His concern for peace resulted in his creation of the Pax Cultura, the "Red Cross" of art and culture. His work for this cause also resulted in the United States and the twenty other nations of the Pan-American Union signing the Roerich Pact on April 15, 1935 at the White House. The Roerich Pact is an early international instrument protecting cultural property.
In 1934–1935, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (then headed by Roerich admirer Henry A. Wallace) sponsored an expedition by Roerich and USDA scientists H. G. MacMillan and James F. Stephens to Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, and China.
Roerich was in India during the Second World War, where he painted Russian epic heroic and saintly themes, including: Alexander Nevsky, The Fight of Mstislav...
In 1942, Roerich received Jawaharlal Nehru at his house in Kullu. Together they discussed the fate of the new world: "We spoke about Indian-Russian cultural association, it is time to think about useful and creative cooperation ...”.
Gandhi would later recall about several days spent together with Roerich's family: "That was a memorable visit to a surprising and gifted family where each member was a remarkable figure in himself, with a well-defined range of interests." ..."Roerich himself stays in my memory. He was a man with extensive knowledge and enormous experience, a man with a big heart, deeply influenced by all that he observed". During the visit, "ideas and thoughts about closer cooperation between India and USSR were expressed. Now, after India wins independence, they have got its own real implementation[clarification needed]. And as you know, there are friendly and mutually-understanding relationships today between both our countries".
In 1942, the American-Russian cultural Association (ARCA) was created in New York.
Its active participants were Ernest Hemingway, Rockwell Kent, Charlie Chaplin, Emil Cooper, Serge Koussevitzky, and Valeriy Ivanovich Tereshchenko. The Association's activity was welcomed by scientists like Robert Millikan and Arthur Compton.
Roerich died on December 13, 1947.
Presently, the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York City is a major institution for Roerich's artistic work. Numerous Roerich societies continue to promote his theosophical teachings worldwide. His paintings can be seen in several museums including the Roerich Department of the State Museum of Oriental Arts in Moscow; the Roerich Museum at the International Centre of the Roerichs in Moscow; the Russian State Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia; a collection in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow; a collection in the Art Museum in Novosibirsk, Russia; an important collection in the National Gallery for Foreign Art in Sofia, Bulgaria; a collection in the Art Museum in Nizhny Novgorod Russia; National Museum of Serbia ; the Roerich Hall Estate in Nagar village in Kullu Valley, India; the Sree Chitra Art Gallery, Thiruvananthapuram, India;[17] in various art museums in India; and a selection featuring several of his larger works in The Latvian National Museum of Art.
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2016 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
