Preparatory materials as an independent source for reconstructing the artist’s creative laboratory

Archive of Scientific Articles

ISSUE:

Manuscript. 2026. Volume 19. Issue 4

COLLECTION:

Theory and history of Culture and Art

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Abstract. The article aims to formulate a source-study methodology for attributing N. K. Roerich’s preparatory materials and to demonstrate its application to a specific case. The study draws on more than thirty years of experience in collecting Roerich’s works. Sketches, working sheets, and compositional variants are commonly regarded as auxiliary documents accompanying a finished work. The article proposes a different perspective: such materials record stages in the formation of an artistic concept, are created simultaneously with the work itself, and are not subject to later revision; consequently, by their nature, they are closer to direct evidence of a historical event than to retrospective commentary. The methodology is based on the principles of historical source studies applied to visual material: distinguishing between established facts, substantiated tendencies, and preliminary observations; independent cross-verification; and the systematic elimination of false hypotheses. Using materials from the private Roerich family collection, the methodology is applied to the attribution of a large-format work from the artist’s Karelian period. The coincidence of the plot and compositional scheme, execution technique, and historical-biographical context makes it possible to move the attribution from the category of preliminary impression to that of a substantiated, documentary-supported tendency. Three other clusters from the same collection demonstrate all three levels of the proposed evidentiary scale: from preliminary observation, through substantiated tendency, to established fact. Differentiating levels of evidentiary certainty does not weaken the final conclusion but strengthens it, since intermediate hypotheses subsequently disproved do not become established as facts. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that, for the first time, preparatory materials are not merely granted the status of independent sources; a specific attribution methodology is explicitly formulated and tested – one applicable not only to the Roerich collection but also to other private collections lacking access to centralized expert assessment.