Nicholas Roerich’s multi-faceted talent brightly showed itself in his works for theatre productions: “Snow Maiden”, “Per Gynt”, “Princess Malen”, “Valkyrie” and others. During Sergey Diaghilev’s famous “Russian Seasons”, N. Roerich did the designs for “Polovets Dances” from Borodin’s “Prince Igor”, “Pskovityanka” by Rimsky-Korsakov, and the ballet “Sacred Spring”, better known as Rite of Spring, to Stravinsky’s music.

Epoch of Silver Age where N. Roerich began his creative development was the epoch of spiritual rise and that undoubtedly affects on formation of artist’s person. Galaxy of outstanding thinkers such as V. S. Solovyev, E. N. Trubetskoi, V.V. Rozanov, P. A. Florensky, S. N.Bulgakov, N. A. Berdyayev et al. brought in Russian culture a deep philosophical thought and saturated it with intensive search of purport of life and morale ideals. East culture was of special interest for Russian intellectuals. In search of universal values N. Roerich besides of Russian philosophy studied also Eastern philosophy, works of outstanding Indian thinkers Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, works of R. Tagore.

Acquaintance with the Oriental philosophic thought got reflection in N. Roerich’s creative work. While the core subjects of the artist’s earlier paintings were ancient pagan Russia, colorful images of the folk epos (“They Build a City”, “Ominous”, “Guests from overseas”, etc.), starting already from the middle of the 1905, many of his canvases and literary pieces were devoted to India (“Lakshmi”, “Indian path”, “Krishna”, Indian dreams” etc.). Roerich as painter and scientist was interested in ancient cultures of Russia and India and their common origin. A correlation between temporal categories of past, present and future was of great importance for his historical concept. Roerich measured the past and the present by the future: “… when we call for study of the past, then will do it only for the sake of future”. “Let’s put the steps of future from ancient wonderful stones”.

From 1906 to 1918, N. Roerich was a Director of the School of Emperor’s Art Encouragement Society and at the same time he was busy with teaching. From this time the artist was a permanent participant of foreign exhibitions. Paris, Venice, Berlin, Roma, Brussels, Vienna saw his paintings. They were purchased by Roman National Museum, Louvre and other European museums.

From 1906, in Roerich’s creativity begun new more mature period. N. Roerich changed an approach to historical theme. History, mythology, folklore were turned into sources, from which the artist got the material for metaphoric graphic language. Realism and symbolism were combined in his art. In this period, N. Roerich intensified a search in the field of color. He almost abandoned the oil and passed to temper method. He experimented many with paints composition, used a method of superposition of one color on another. Originality of Roerich’s art was mentioned by artistic critique. From 1907 to 1918, nine monographs and several tens of artistic magazines devoted to N. Roerich’s art were published in Russia and Europe. Leonid Andreyev figuratively named a world, created by the artist, as “Roerich’s Empire”.

In 1909, N. Roerich was elected as Academician of Russian Academy of Arts and a member of Rheims Academy in France.

From 1910, he became the head of artistic association “World of Art”, in which were A. Benois, L. Bakst, I. Grabar, V. Serov, K. Petrov-Vodkin, B. Kustodiev, A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Z. Serebryakova et al.

“Greatest intuitionist of the century”, according to expression of A.M. Gorky, N. Roerich expressed his forebodings on the eve of the First World War in symbolic images: “Fairest City is the enemies’ vexation”, “The Last Angel”, “Glow”, “Human works” et al. These paintings demonstrate both a theme of struggle between two sides – Light and Darkness, which runs through the whole Roerich’s art, and human’s responsibility for its own destiny and the whole of world. N. Roerich not only created the paintings of anti-war orientation, but also written the articles devoted to protection of peace and culture.

In 1915, N. Roerich made a report to Emperor Nikolai II and Grand Prince Nikolai Nikolayevich (Younger) containing a call to take serious measures for national protection of cultural treasures. In 1916, because of serious illness of lungs, following the doctor’s insistence N. Roerich together with his family moved to the Finland (Serdobol), on the shore of Lake Ladoga. Proximity to St. Petersburg allowed him to take part in the work of School of Emperor’s Art Encouragement Society.