Peace and wisdom through Beauty! Such is the message of Nicholas Roerich, pronounced at the very time when so many are vainly seeking the secret of international peace through suppression, through armament, through hate.
Some twenty-three years ago in his native Russia he indicated his confidence in our artistic future, by assisting in the first America Art Exhibition in Russia. Since then he has ever been a sincere friend of America. To him, in turn, America has paid its reciprocal tribute, by the profound reverence with which his works have been greeted in this country.
Upon his arrival in America for the exhibition of his works in , he was welcomed everywhere and his exhibition which toured America, as well as that of his new paintings in New York, won for him a series of personal tributes.
To Russians, the name of Roerich is coupled with such geniuses of their nation as Mussorgsky and Dostoyevsky and his influence during his directorship of the School for the Encouragement of Arts in Petrograd, and as first president of the Mir Iskusstva cannot be overestimated. His is a vision without boundaries. Through the veil of the temporary, he sees the eternal.
His spirit has prophesied visions of a new world, where rife and discord are no more, and where the power of Beauty in Action fills mankind with ineffable Love and understanding. And for this reason a special significance is connected with the following extracts from his letters, which we have the great privilege of publishing in this volume.
