"The rays pierced through the Earth's atmosphere, and the horizon turned bright orange, gradually transitioning through all the colors of the rainbow: to blue, indigo, violet, and black. An indescribable color palette! Just like in the paintings of the artist Nikolai Roerich." 
Yuri Gagarin, entry in the onboard journal made on April 12, 1961, during the first flight into space.

🎂 Today is Nikolai Roerich's birthday. He was the great Russian artist, writer, traveler, philosopher, and archaeologist. I can't even count how many times I visited his museum in Moscow.

Nikolai Konstantinovich Roerich was born on October 9, 1874. During his 73 years of life, he created around 7,000 paintings, many of which are housed in renowned galleries around the world 🎨, and about 30 volumes of literary works, including two poetry collections 📚.

On June 5, 2013, Roerich's painting "Madonna Laboris" was sold at an auction at Bonhams in London for 7.88 million pounds sterling. This set a world record for a painting by a Russian artist.

By the way, Nikolai Roerich had a lawyer degree; he simultaneously enrolled in the Imperial Academy of Arts and in St. Petersburg University for the law faculty, progressing from both with a one-year difference.

The diploma painting "The Messenger" (on the photo) was purchased by Pavel Tretyakov, the founder of the Tretyakov Gallery. The well-known critic of that time, Vladimir Stasov, highly praised this painting: "You must visit Tolstoy... let the great writer of the Russian land promote you an artist." 

Roerich's friends were Maxim Gorky, Herbert Wells, and many other writers and poets.

Testament of Nicholas Roerich:

"Love your Motherland. Love the Russian people. Love all the peoples in all the vastness of our Motherland. Let this love teach you to love all of humanity. <…> Love your Motherland with all your might - and it will love you. We are rich in love for the Motherland. Wider the road! The builder is coming! The Russian people are coming!