| Armenian art
has been profoundly influenced by Armenian culture, Armenia's
long history, ever-changing geography and unique mountainous
landscape.
One of the most important periods of Armenian art was that
from the ninth to the sixth centuries BC. Armenia was, at
this point in history, the Kingdom of Van or Urartu. Citadels,
temples, irrigation canals, carved stone seals, glass, ceramics,
jewelry and arms were characteristic of Urartu's artistic
endeavors. The Urartians were major producers of bronze objects.
They were also very skilled in the use of silver and gold.
Vases, medallions and amulets were fashioned from silver while
gold was used to create articles of jewelry.
In the 4th and 5th centuries AD very important events in
Armenian history greatly affected the arts. As Armenia became
the first nation to officially adopt Christianity in 301 AD,
Christian iconography came to play a very important role in
Armenian art and architecture. Also, after the creation of
the Armenian alphabet in 405-406 AD by Mesrop Mashtotz, the
written word helped to developed the Armenian language, literature
and arts, allowing for the advancement of the art of the illuminated
manuscript. Armenian scribes began to copy and translate Christian
texts onto parchment adding to them symbolic illustrations
and introductory folios. These manuscripts were then used
in religious services.
Churches soon became the main mode of Armenian architectural
expression. The seventh century is often referred to as the
"golden age of Armenian ecclesiastical architecture."
A great many cathedrals and monuments with interior frescoes
and stone carvings pertaining to the Biblical stories were
constructed.
Monasteries, founded in the 10th century, grew as important
artistic centers. Illuminated manuscripts, a major component
of Armenian art history, were created and assembled into books
here. Today, the largest collection of these can be found
in Yerevan's famed repository of ancient documents, the Matenadaran.
The twelfth to fourteenth centuries witnessed the development
of manuscript illumination into the art of book illustration.
Manuscripts became smaller, no longer for use in religious
services. These more elaborately designed and varied works
were now for private use in the libraries of monasteries and
homes.
These monasteries also provided for the production of khatchkars
(literally, "cross stones"), constructions unparalleled
in the world of art. These carved stones were most commonly
used as gravestones as well as to mark victories, foundations
of villages, the completion of a church and the like. For
all their diversity, the basic khatchkar design was always
the same, the Cross being the central object often surrounded
by elaborate ornamentation. Khatchkars can be seen throughout
Armenia even today.
In the 16th century, changes in social and political life
resulted in the dramatic alteration of Armenian culture and
art. At this time, Armenia lost her independence and was divided
between the empires of Turkey and Persia for the next 250
years. Armenian architecture and related arts virtually disappeared
during this period. Armenian monasteries, churches and schools
were built only outside of Armenia. Slowly, the traditional
art of manuscript illumination gave way to printing. This
new method of making and copying text was first introduced
in Armenia in the year 1512.
From the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, the orientation
of art turned increasingly to that of everyday life. The minor
arts such as carpet and lace-making developed into well-known
crafts. These arts were inspired by sculpture, architecture,
and painting . The creative impulse is quite evident in the
surviving examples of metalwork of earlier centuries, in the
carved doors of monasteries and in the fine collections of
Armenian carpets found in the museums of Yerevan.
The art of carpet-making has existed in Armenia since the
fifth century BC. But, perhaps the most noteworthy period
of Armenian rug weaving is that of the thirteenth century.
The great "dragon" rugs showing indigenous designs
resembling highly stylized dragons woven into a latticework
of plant and animal forms were created during this period.
They are among the most original and abstract creations in
textiles.
Early in the nineteenth century when the sultans of Turkey
wanted to establish rug weaving around Constantinople, it
was the Armenian master weavers whom they called upon to do
so.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, Kutahia (now in Turkey) became
a pottery and ceramics Center. Art experts have contributed
the entire output of this area to Armenian potters. This attribution
is confirmed by Armenian inscriptions found on the works,
the characteristic representation of saints on the pieces
and the treatment of ceramic tiles both purely decorative
and religious.
In the 19th century we see the development of new trends
in art both in Armenia and in the world as a whole. With the
annexation of Eastern Armenia by Christian Russia in 1828
after the Russian-Persian war, the situation changed for the
better. Armenian writers and artists were seized by the liberating
ideas of Romanticism and, although most of them lived outside
Armenia, their works seemed to recreate their native land,
the "heavenly country," towards which their gaze
was always turned.
The first Armenian to graduate from the Academy of Arts in
St. Petersburg was the famous seascape painter Hovhanes (Ivan)
Aivazovsky, whose work is also allotted a significant place
in the history of Russian art. He gained wide recognition
while still a young man, being the first foreign artist to
be awarded in the Legion d'Honneur and becoming a member of
five European academies.
Among those educated in the French school of Realism, we
should note S. Aghadjanyan, who gained recognition for his
portraits of children, and P. Terlemezyan, a man with a heroic
biography who captured the inimitable beauty of Van, his native
land. Products of the same school were the fine and original
still-life painters Zakar Zakaryan and Hovsep Pushman, who
were less well known in their native land.
Of late 19th century artists, we should note Vartkes Surenyants,
who gave history painting a place in national art, working
in a style related to Art Nouveau. Egishe Tadevosyan brought
Impressionism to Armenian painting. The most important of
the graphic artists was Edgar Shahin, whose work was highly
prized in France.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Armenian culture reached
a turning point, where its future development depended greatly
on the cognition of its roots, on the ability to find new
means of expression to assert modern national style. The revival
of ancient traditions was a historic necessity for the people
with such a rich cultural heritage. Poetry and theater experienced
a great upsurge, the world of Armenian music was revealed
in all its original beauty, and the wonder of medieval architecture
were studied and interpreted in scholar papers. The Russian
avant-garde also helped shape the creative personality of
Georgi Yakulov, while a little later Yervand Kochar was greatly
influenced by the latest tendencies in French painting.
In 1915 the Armenian people suffered a terrible tragedy.
Whilst Europe's attention was fully engaged by the First World
War, a horrendous program for the destruction of the local
population was put into effect in Western (Turkish) Armenia
and the same fate awaited Eastern Armenia. Victory in the
battle of Sardarapat, near Yerevan, in 1918 saved the last
plot of Armenian land from destruction and it was here that
the Armenian state was born. Armenians living in this 30,000
square kilometers of land were once more seized by great hope
and they set about the recreation of their motherland with
great enthusiasm. Members of the Armenian intelligentsia poured
in from all over the world. The capital, Yerevan, was built
up according to plans drawn up by A. Tamanyan and in the space
of a few years the city gained a university, a museum of fine
arts, theaters and a conservatoire. The time had come to set
about the training of local artists and thus in 1924 the first
art schools opened in Leninakan (now Gyumri) and Yerevan,
followed in 1945 by the foundation of an art institute.
The art of the new Armenia was a natural continuation of
the colorful, vital art of Martiros Saryan. Hagop Kodjoyan
turned to mythological and historical subjects, endowing them
with heroic and romantic sentiment. Sedrak Arakelyan produced
intimate, sincere depictions of local landscapes and traditional
Armenian life, employing a delicate color range.
At the same time, there were a number of talented Armenian
artists working in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, a traditional
place of residence for thousands of Armenians. Among those
were, G. Grigorian (nick-named Giotto), H. Karalyan, H. Garibdjanian,
and the superb painter Alexander Bajbeuk-Melikian.
A whole galaxy of artists emerged in the Diaspora. Their
art developing under a foreign sky, the artists in the Diaspora
projected onto canvas their recollections of the lost childhood.
Perhaps it was to be expected that the new Surrealist movement
found fertile ground in their tortured souls. "I was
born in Asia Minor," said the famous American writer
William Saroyan, "and therefore in my head the real and
the allegorical are intermixed." The results of such
as intermingling were soon to become visible. One important
figure in the history of Surrealism was Leon Tutundjian (France),
while the founder of Abstract Surrealism was the American
Arshile Gorky (Vosdanik Manuk Adoyan). Surrealism also influenced
the work the superb French artist Carzou (Karnik Zulumian).
After World War II, there was a widespread tendency towards
realism, with artists expressing their longing, their loneliness
and depression. This also reflects in the work of the new
generation of the Diaspora artists, such as a Jirayr Orakian
in Italy, and Jansem (Jan-Hovanes Semerjian) in France. Hagop
Hagopyan (Egypt) also worked in this mood, although he was
to continue his work in his homeland later on. In Italy, the
Neo-classical artist Grigor Shiltrian gained wide renown.
In speaking of artists of the Diaspora we should remember
that their work, while it belongs to their native countries'
cultures, has drawn substantially from their national roots,
representing the Armenian fate. This, most definitely, allows
us to consider the Diaspora art an indispensable part of Armenian
culture.
At the same time, back in Armenia, as well as elsewhere in
the USSR, art was going through a period of stagnation, and
some kind of incentive was badly needed to save it from mediocre
obscurity. In the sixties, a group of young talented artists
entered the scene, breaking through the orthodox "socialist
realism" dogma: O. Minassian, R. Atoyan, M. Petrossian,
A. Melkonian, A. Hovanessian, V. Galstian, A. Sukiassian,
R.Khatchatrian, and others. The leader of this group was Minas
Avetisyan. Parallel to this there was a revival amongst artists
of the previous generation: A. Bekaryan, S. Rashmadjian, A.
Ananikyan, G. Khandjian, S. Mooradian and Lavinia Bajbeuk-Melikyan.
Also of this generation were two repatriated artists: the
fine, delicate painter Bedros Kontradjyan, who returned from
France after the war, and the bright colorist Harutyun Galentz,
who began his career in the Lebanon. Gayane Khachaturyan and
Sergei Paradjanov were born in the same town, the colorful,
inimitable Tbilisi, and the work of both is whimsical and
full of fantasy.
Today, Armenian artists continue to develop and change just
as they have done throughout history. The Armenian people,
as is evident, have contributed significantly to every period
of world art. No doubt that they will continue to do so in
the future.
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