Art by Nicholas Roerich

"My heartiest thanks for the magnificent work which you sent to me. I admire those creations so much that I can say without exaggeration that never have landscapes made such a great impression on me."

--Albert Einstein, letter to Roerich Museum, 1931

RoerichTrust.org

The Black Gobi

1928

And We Do Not Fear

1922

Book of Life

1938

Changthang, Northern Tibet

1939

Song of Shambhala

Idols (Pagan Russia)

1910

Issa and the Skull of the Giant

Message to Tiron

1940

Abode of Gesar

1947

Mongolia

Mongolia I

1938

Monhegan, Maine

1922

Mother of Genghis Khan

1933

Most Sacred Treasure of the Mountain

1933

On the Heights, Tumo

1936

Stronghold of Tibet

1932

Descent into Hell

1933

Star of the Hero

1936

Guests from Overseas

1901

USSR postage stamp

1974

Nicholas Roerich

1874-1947 Russian

The Sedlec Ossuary

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Sedlec Ossuary is a small Roman Catholic chapel located in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic. The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people.

"Henry, the abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Sedlec, was sent to Palestine by King Otakar II of Bohemia in 1278. When he returned, he brought with him a small amount of earth that he had removed from Golgotha and sprinkled it over the abbey cemetery. The word of this pious act soon spread and the cemetery in Sedlec became a desirable burial site throughout Central Europe. During the Black Death in the mid 14th century, and after the Hussite Wars in the early 15th century, many thousands of people were buried there and the cemetery had to be greatly enlarged.

"In 1870, František Rint, a woodcarver, was employed by the Schwarzenberg family to put the bone heaps into order. The macabre result of his effort speaks for itself. Four enormous bell-shaped mounds occupy the corners of the chapel. An enormous chandelier of bones, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body, hangs from the center of the nave with garlands of skulls draping the vault. Other works include piers and monstrances flanking the altar, a large Schwarzenberg coat-of-arms, and the signature of Rint, also executed in bone, on the wall near the entrance."

Old Russia in Color

The Empire That Was Russia: The Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated exhibition at the United States Library of Congress.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/

"These rare color photos by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii document the Russian empire between 1909 and 1915. With the support of Tsar Nicholas II, Prokudin-Gorskii traveled throughout the Russian empire in a specially outfitted train car conducting a photographic survey, according to the Library of Congress, which owns the original slides.

"Using a special technique that captured three black and white photographs in succession, the pictures could then be combined using red, green and blue filters to create realistic color. The result is vivid photographs that look startlingly modern."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/20/rare-color-photos-of-the-_n_785798.html#186298

Ilf and Petrov in America

"When we had been in New York for a week and, as it seemed to us, we began to understand America, we were quite unexpectedly told that New York is not at all America. They told us that New York is a bridge between Europe and America, and that we were still situated on the bridge. Then we went to Washington, being steadfastly convinced that the capital of the United States is indisputably America. We spent a day there, and by evening we managed to fall in love with this purely American city. However, on that very same evening we were told that Washington was under no circumstances America. They told us that this was a town of governmental bureaucrats and that America was something quite different. Perplexed, we traveled to Hartford, a city in the state of Connecticut, where the great American writer Mark Twain spent his mature years. Much to our horror, the local residents told us in unison that Hartford was also not genuine America. They said that the genuine America was the southern states, while others affirmed that it was the western ones. Several didn't say anything but vaguely pointed a finger into space. We then decided to work according to a plan: to drive around the entire country in an automobile, to traverse it from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific and to return along a different route, along the Gulf of Mexico, calculating that indeed somewhere we would be sure to find America....

"This picture should be captioned as follows: 'Here, this is America!'

"And, indeed, when you close your eyes and try to rekindle memories of this country where you spent four months, you don't imagine yourself in Washington with its gardens, columns, and full collection of monuments, nor in New York with its skyscrapers and its poor and rich, nor in San Francisco with its steep streets and suspension bridges, nor in the mountains, factories, or canyons, but at such an intersection of two roads and a gasoline station against a ground of wires and advertising signs."


--Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov, Odnoetazhnaya Amerika, 1937, translated by Erica Wolf

Painting the Space Needle, 1962

"Giving an upper leg its coat of 'astronaut white,' painter pauses in high cage to view awesome sight. Copyright 1962, The Craftsman Press, Inc."

U.S.A., Washington, Seattle
Space Needle
from VintageSeattle.org

At the Mountains of Madness

"The studio is very nervous about the cost and it not having a love story or a happy ending, but it's impossible to do either in the Lovecraft universe."

--Guillermo Del Toro, Time Out London

Orthodox church in the Beskidy Mountains, Poland

Photo from Marta.

the tomb

Kilclooney Dolmen
Ireland, Donegal County

"The Song of Amergin"
ca. 1268 BCE Goidelic
translated and arranged by Robert Graves

God speaks and says:

I am a stag of seven tines,
Over the flooded world,
I am borne by the wind,
I descend in tears like dew, I lie glittering.
I fly aloft like a griffon to my nest on the cliff,
I bloom among the loveliest flowers,
I am both the oak and the lightning that blasts it,

I embolden the spearsman,
I teach the councillors their wisdom,
I inspire the poets,
I rove the hills like a conquering boar,
I roar like the winter sea,
I return like the receding wave,
Who but I can unfold the secrets of the unhewen dolmen?

I am the womb of every holt,
I am the blaze on every hill,
I am the queen of every hive,
I am the shield to every head,
I am the tomb to every hope.

barbican

Adventuria

Posted a big lot of old photos at the Adventuria blog. Here're some...

U.K., Bermuda
nautical archaeology field school
Radigan Neuhalfen


Russia, Kamchatka, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky


Sea of Japan, Far Eastern coast of Russia


Mongolia
Radigan Neuhalfen, self-portrait


Russia, Ural
archaeology dig


Turkey, Istanbul


Ukraine, Crimea, Black Sea


Russia, Siberia, Novosibirsk


Russia, Siberia, Novosibirsk


U.S.A., Illinois
archaeology survey
Radigan Neuhalfen


U.S.A., Minnesota, Minneapolis
archaeology van


Mexico, Yucatan
archaeology course


U.S.A., Texas, San Antonio
Radigan Neuhalfen


U.S.A., North Dakota


U.S.A., North Dakota