Artist: Nicholas Roerich
Title: Conflagration
Medium: Colour chromolithograph
Size: Image: 17.5 × 10 cm; Paper: 40 × 31 cm
Year: 1915
Description:
Nicholas Roerich’s Conflagration (1915) embodies a prophetic vision of destruction and foreboding. A medieval fortress, engulfed in the glow of ominous flames, looms beneath a turbulent sky, while a lone knight with a flaming sword stands guard—a symbolic warning of impending catastrophe. Created during the First World War, the work resonates with themes of apocalypse, vigilance, and humanity’s fragile fate, speaking powerfully to collective fear and spiritual reckoning.
