The main idea of the artist’s life is “Peace through culture”, it was included in N.K. Roerich’s Pact and the Banner of Peace and connected with education of love to the environment in its diversity through its cognition and has clear educational meaning.
The artist’s heritage answers different questions related to theory and practice of ecological education, it provides diverse material for this work.
Fairy tales and old legends of various nations, popular omens, customs and traditions connected with nature, different historical facts in which the history of human culture fixed necessity of cognition of nature, the mother of all the living, its secrets and laws of development are found on pages of his literary works, in essays, diaries, letters. He left the detailed description of his journeys; “Ursuvati” institute activity is a wonderful symbol of reign of the human culture and its interaction with nature.
N.K. Roerich’s creative life gives impetus to all directions of diverse cultural, educational and ecological work including ecological education programme.
Let’s consider several statements concerning the meaning of nature for the human-being and his education.
“Instinctive strife for nature (the only possible way of life) is very strong in every person…
We are driven to nature by spiritual cognition, esthetic demands, our body also pushes us to nature, us the overfussed and with no faith… the life in its spiral of culture strictly approaches us to the origin of everything, and never but now there were so many various calls for nature” – he wrote.
“Experienced teachers always understand that children must not be taken away from nature because only it keeps mobility, wit and determination”.
N.K. Roerich explains the methods of approaching nature:
“One cannot enter the nature if only he theoretically decided about the usefulness of this experience. This reasonable solution does not make any sense. One should understand nature. One should enter the nature as its collaborator without blaming but with admiration.”
He thought the person could join nature spiritually, soak its beauty, nature would give the applicant forces and healthy, calm energy. Not only the nature but art, the depicting art can help it.
He wrote: “The art is important because it goes by strengthened drive into life, nature and explains its beauty to spectators and listeners in different languages”.
N.K. Roerich explains it in article “To Nature” (1901).
30 years after returning to his manifesto of man’s attitude to nature he had to state with sadness some negative implications of man’s ignorance of laws of the Earth life development. “Pain of the Planet” – the title of the article reflects the artist’s stance. “If the person is not always creative, he always can make pain… to the whole planet”.