Although Roerich formed several close friendships during his university years, his personality was an enigma to many of his acquaintances. He had an affable, gentle manner, but was very reserved.

By the time Roerich completed the life drawing course, the academy reforms had gone into effect and the moment had come for him to choose a professor in whose studio he would continue his studies until he graduated. The studio of historical painting was led by Repin, that of landscape painting by Kuinji. Since Roerich was so interested in history and archeology, he was naturally drawn to the genre of historical painting and decided to apply to Repin’s studio, but the class was already filled.

A simple class quota problem, therefore, led Nicholas Roerich to the studio of Arkhip Ivanovich Kuinji. Roerich felt a deep resonance with Kuinji’s approach to art.

Roerich’s research of his favourite historical subjects took him to the Imperial Public Library. There in 1895 he came to know Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov, an eminent historian and critic of art, music and literature, who exerted a powerful influence on the artistic life of St. Petersburg.

Writing Stasov on February 26, 1897, Roerich spelled out his plans to do a series of paintings devoted to the founding of the Russian nation. But by that time he finished only one of the paintings in this ambitious series:

The Messenger: Tribe Has Risen Against Tribe.

It depicts an old messenger sitting in a wooden boat. His stooped back and lowered arms convey sadness and concern; he is bearing news to a neighboring settlement that the tribes are at war.

The Messenger was the work Roerich submitted as his graduation project at the academy. The Messenger earned Nicholas Roerich more than the title of artist; it secured for him a place in the history of Russian art.