THE DIASPORA ART 

Red Max, 1930 by Leon Tutundjian.

Because a considerable number of art critics strongly believe that Armenian art came out of necessity, that Armenian art was the inevitable product, cause-effect of an Armenian tragedy known to the world as the Armenian Genocide?! Such questions are asked  to allow us to explore and comprehend the identity, limitations, infinity, dimensions and characteristics of the art of Armenian painters inside and outside Armenia. It is my strong belief that Armenian artists from the beginning of the 19^th century rivaled their colleagues and other artists of the world at all level. In many instances, the Armenian artists did paint like Armenian individuals, like Armenian priests, like Armenian sheltered and sorrowful souls, like Armenian rivers humming nostalgic and bleeding songs, like Armenian prairies and proud Armenian mounts defying eternity and divine majesty in their beauty, serenity and historical formidable struggles and accomplishments. No doubt when you look at a Martiros Saryan’s (The loving patriarch of the Armenian artists, more on him later)  painting, you see Armenia in his colors, in his themes, in his painful and defying strokes. Armenia is all over his canvases whether he is painting Mount Ararat, Lac Sevan,  sad and obscure Armenian villages, Armenian faces in markets, souks, bazaars, on mastabahs  and narrow streets of Istanbul and Ankara, or whether he is not addressing any Armenian theme on the linens. The man breathes, and lives his beloved Armenia twenty four hour a day. And so did the 99% of the Armenian artists during and after the Turkish domination, the massacres, the genocide, the famine, the Armenian struggles and the exile of millions of them to Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Greece, Cyprus, Malta and so many other countries. Then, is there an  authentic, purely Armenian art. The answer is affirmative. Yes, there is an Armenian art but, with an universal appeal and an artistic aesthetical mastery of a world class quality. But, how about the Armenian artists who where born to wealthy Armenian families in Europe and in the United States, In Venezuela, Santos in Brazil or Nice, Cannes and  St. Tropez in France? Do they feel the same way ? Do they express their sensations and feelings on canvases the same way a hungry Armenian artist in the empty streets of Konia, Adana, Izmir, Yerevan during the killings of Armenians? Honest critics escape those questions. They don’t like to address the issue, simply because the answers are not so easy. The majority of Armenian art history teachers in American universities adopted one singular set of very complicated and perplex answers and explanations to those questions and answers. Prominent American art historians authorities on the subject believe that those questions can be answered by historical and comparative analysis.

Painting  "Nymph"  by Anatoli Avetianup.

Honestly speaking, let me be completely honest and candid. When I look at a Sarayan, Guiragossian, Assadoor or Carzou paintings, I do not see Armenian blood, Armenian churches decimated by Turkish regiments, I do not see an Armenian Genocide. Simply, I see a painting of a superior art quality, vibrant or intelligent colors, equilibrium or rebellious strokes movements; a painting which could have been done by any foreign artist who has never heard of the Armenian tragedy or learned one single thing about the Armenian heritage. True! But, if you do not see it, you feel it. And that is the greatness of the Armenian artists. You just feel it. You are not supposed to see art as an object resting on a table, like a vase or a bowl of fruits. You are not supposed to look at a piece of art with uninformed and un-sensitive eyes. You do not look at art to discover it. Simply, you do not look at art, you just feel it. Armenian art is not stagnant. It is a take and a give and vice-versa.  Armenian art as an unchangeable witness of a bloody genocide and tragic facts, remains independent and constantly in state of metamorphosis. To feel, understand and fully absorb an Armenian art, one must be familiar with the elements that constitute its very fabric, the message behind the painting, the meaning of lights in an Armenian painting, the concept and symbols of the Katchkars, the Diaspora essence and soul,  and most definitely the national religious fervor.

THE PIONEERS OF THE DIASPORA ART

I will address the issue very candidly all along this essay. Together, we will select some paintings and artists that are the best representatives of an Armenian platform, an ideological plateau, a philosophical front and consequently, we let the genre of the chosen artists, their colors and design of their canvases tell us the whole story. An honest and truthful story that  poses all the questions and gives all the answers. When I look at a Baal statue, easily I can identify its ethnicity, where this statue came from and who made it. It would be very easy to identify its origin from its style whether it was made by a Hittite artist, a Sumerian artist, an Assyrian artist, or a Phoenician artist. The same applies when we admire the beauty of an obelisk. It becomes evident that this monument is Egyptian, because it has the Egyptian motif and style. So what constitutes an Armenian art? What are the characteristics? The motif? The Genre? The style? The particularities? Those questions become more difficult to answer, once we visit in time the various eras and epochs of Armenian history which began with the bronze age.

Painting, below: Ararat by Sarkissian

and art are twins. They were born together in the same cradle. The cradle of the civilization at the dawn of the human race. At the very dawn and sunset of the bronze age, in caves and fortresses, on trees branches and savaged hills filled with skulls and bones, at the doors of magnificent citadels, at the gates of invincible fortresses and at the feet of mountains that witness the might of unmerciful formidable armies. From the very beginning of the known and unknown, recorded and un-recorded history of mankind, Armenia was there standing tall with any form of an art expression by a human being with clay, stone, bronze, iron, wood, ceramics, poetry, titles, a piece of rug, carpet, a manuscript, a lace or even bones. Armenia explored it art, invented art, co-created art, lived and almost died without art during the massacres of world war one.

THE PIONEERS: MARTIROS SARAYAN (1880-1972) . MARTIROS SARAYAN: THE FATHER OF MODERN ARMENIAN ART

Martiros Sarayan  was born to a farmers family near Rostov on Don, in the small Armenian populated town of Novy- Nakhichevan.  Martiros Saryan is my hero! This is a man of an utmost integrity,  an infinite goodness, a full devotion to his homeland and immense affection toward others. He never sought fame or wealth. One single thought was constantly on his mind “ARMENIA”. All his life, Martiros was obsessed and possessed by the love of his country and the survival of his countrymen and countrywomen. Early in his career, he established a name for himself in Russia and got plenty of opportunities to leave his half destroyed and impoverished country  to the United States. Unlike his compatriots  and contemporaries Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall and many others,  Sarian did not leave for the West.  Martiros refused to leave Armenia, its mountains, prairies, burning sun and beloved people. Until the very end of his life, Armenia remained the major theme of his  artistic creativity, quest for the beauty, the eternal wisdom through colors and the immortality of shapes and forms on the linens. Armenia was his main and principal theme work. His paintings on the nature of his beloved Armenia have a bigger than life, monumental, gigantic and epic proportional dimensions. Works like: "Armenia", "Midday Rest", "My Courtyard". Sarayan wrote: "My intention is to picture the visible survival of our small country after its tragic epic soaked in blood and purified in faith. This piece of land on the slopes of Mount Ararat I look upon as the source of our hope. I wish to show the world that this mountainous little country exists and keeps in its bosom just a handful, but hard-working people, whose heroic history is symbolized by the centuries old spiritual treasures."

MARTIROS SARAYAN

Photos from L to R: #1. Flowers of Kalaki, 1914, by Martiros Sarayan. #2 Valley at the Feet of Mount Ararat.

With the coming of Martiros Sarayan, Armenian art began to change and commenced to create its own identity free of Russian and French art influence which have heavily dominated the past era and deeply made its mark and put its signature on the work of all the previous Armenian masters. Under the influence of his first travel to the homeland of his fathers in 1901, Sarayan created a series of paintings in pantheist spirit, " Mythology, Fantastic Visions, Fairy Tales and Dreams," artistically and psychologically influenced by Symbolism.  He wanted to free his style from foreign influences, Russian, Anatolian, French, you name it, but, he was not totally immune. As the father of modern Armenian painting, Sarayan while developing his painting style worked in all the newest art venues, theories and  most recent trends.  Unquestionably,  he was the first Armenian painter to recognize  and preach the necessity  of creating, forming, inventing  an individual  new style based and established upon  ancient national traditions and values. Since1909, Sarayan turned his attention to Armenia's  everyday life, taking as his subjects ancient sites untouched by civilization  and materialistic progress. Nature was sacred to him. Particularly, the Armenian landscape and sceneries. Light was very important to Sarayan, for he considered light as the symbol of Armenia and Christian religion. Light represented the eternal and religious fervor of Christianity which was nourished by the Armenian struggles during the Ottoman occupation. In that respect, he has become the patron artist of Armenia. 

Photos from L to R: #1. The Poet at the Feet of Aragats, 1906 by Martiros Sarayan. #2.  Near the Well, 1908 by Martiros Sarayan.

Sarayan  was deeply influenced and inspired by French masters of the era, notably  the French Impressionists such as Henri Matisse,  Monet, Gauguin and many others  with whom he created a movement known as “THE BLUE ROSE GROUP” solely established to defend this new style of painting and defending its credibility, artistic values and legitimacy in the European communities, societies, salons, centers, milieux and critics circles. Ironically enough, later on in Paris, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques will do the same thing by creating their own group to defend their cubism movement and abstract art which were at the beginning of the dawn of their creation extremely ridiculed in the society and press. At the beginning of the Impressionism movement, nobody in the art world, art critic circles and media would take this art form seriously. And to make it worse and more difficult for those Impressionist artists, no gallery owner or museum curator will exhibit their work. It was not recognized nor accepted. Saryan was in the same boat! Saryan following the patriotic tradition of his predecessors, he  devoted his energy, passion and time to Armenian nature and landscape and portraiture but, he was innovative and most surely not repetitive. He created a new trend, a new artistic plat form, a genre which became easily recognized and recognizable, particularly in portraiture. For instance,  upon painting a portrait, Saryan  would create and incorporate related and unrelated objects and images for the background of his painting. Many of Saryan's paintings have a permanent home in Yerevan, Armenia  and  two museums: The Martiros Saryan Museum in Yerevan and The Kazakstan State Museum of Arts.

INNOVATIVE CREATIVITY: Such innovative creativity appeared in many of his work and particularly in famous paintings such as the portrait of the Armenian engineer Alexander Tamanyan in 1932. In that particular painting, the artist added to the background of the paintings, an impression of the blue prints and lay out design of the Armenian Opera House under project. The background was a play ground for structural and architectural ideas, concepts and design lines; a sort of a drawing board of the construction site, exterior design, the house façade, including very meticulous details. This innovation gave depth, extra dimension and substance to the portrait subject of his study. Another characteristic feature of his creativity was the exteriorization of the inner feelings and sentiments of his models.

Photo: The Settlement  by Sarayan. 

To his portraits, Saryan added a perfect blend of nonchalant strokes of unconformity with meticulous attention to details to project the most pleasant attributes of his subjects, qualities and virtues such hope, happiness, strength, optimism and self-assurance.  His portraits would not sit  there like a  historical reference or a representation of a human face that should look exactly how others conceive it or expect it to appear to them, to history and to  evidential authenticity. Each of his portrait painting is a human drama, sad or joyful, it still remain a human documentary rather than an appealing and truthful reproduction of the physical traits of the model. You can feel the person in his portraitures. This models do not sit  or pose for him, they come to him with a story to tell. This is so evident in the portraits of his Holiness Katholikos Vazgen the First, the Russian melodramatic poet Lozinsky and the Armenian dramatist and poet Avetik Isshakyan. Major works: Poet at the Foot of Aragats, 1906.  By the Well. Hot Day, 1908. Flowers of Kalaki, 1914. Street. Afternoon. Constantinopole, 1910. Egyptian Masks, 1911.  Night Landscape, 1911. Date Palm, 1911

CARZOU,  (1907-2000) Carzou was born in1907 in Aleppo, Syria. He died in 2000 in France. This is the Armenian artist who made it big time in Europe and particularly in Paris, France. He was a living legend. While many of his compatriots struggled for living, Carzou was the toast of the town. Carzou studied art in France.

Photos from L to R: #1.Carzou. #2 By the Canal at Venice, 1975, by Carzou.

 In 1925, he graduated from the Paris School of Architecture. In 1939, Carzou had his first one-man show in Paris and he took the City of Lights by storm. It did not take him longtime to become famous. He was innovative, visionary, romantic and most certainly very lucky. The French art communities loved him. So did the French government! In1 956 the President of France conferred upon him the highest honor and the highest medal in the country: “LA LEGION D’HONNEUR”  (The Legion of Honor) knight title. In1979, Carzou was elected  a member of The French Academy of Art.  This superb artist brought Armenian contemporary art to its highest level. France in1920 was the second homeland to Armenian artists and the Mecca of Modern Armenian Art , particularly to a great number of Armenian artists in the Diaspora. Carzou was aware of that and demonstrated his gratitude by integrating his way of life and art in the Parisian's life style, its mood, fabrics and intellectualism. The name of CARZOU came as an illuminated revelation in 1953 with the presentation of his masterpiece "Giselle" at the Paris Opera and following the exhibition of his "Venetian Landscapes" in Paris.  Two French museums bear the name of Carzou, one in Vence and the other in Manosque.  The third will be opening soon in Yerevan, Armenia. 

JANSEM (Jan-Hovanes Semerdjian-1920). After the Second World War a realist artistic expression dominated the art communities in France. This new trend depicted sentiments of solitude,  sadness, and intellectual existentialism. This movement  became the main vehicle of expression for numerous avant-garde artists including Jansem. He lost his father at an early age. This paternal loss deeply affected his artistic creativity. In addition to this unfortunate mishap, Jansem had a very tough time throughout his life. This is evidenced and reflected in his works, particularly in some of his masterpieces, such as "The Woman with Indian Corn". Jansem was a proud man with deep scars in his heart. In Paris, he lived in quasi-seclusion and kept his thoughts and his personal feelings to himself. But, once he began to paint, those very inner feelings exited his solitude. French critics called him "The Artist of Les Miserables." Even though, sadness and loneliness dominated his entire life, his art remained sublime, rich and vibrant with feelings, dialogue with human nature and concerns about the under-privileged, the poor and the needy. His strokes were a painful and evocative screaming. Pale colors, soft lines, pensive faces and serenity of his subjects reflected the pain he buried in his heart and revolt against the injustice of the world. No wonder, why he loved Goya so much!

Photos from L to R: Major works by Jansem.  #1. The Market, 1973. #2.  Homage to Goya, 1978. #3.  Claudius, 1978.

KEVORK BACHINDJAGHIAN (1857-1923)

Kevork Bachindjaghian is the undisputed founder of the Armenian “Paysagist” school.  He was deeply influenced by landscape sceneries he grew around and saw during his childhood in Georgia, former state of the Soviet empire. The valley of Alazan was particularly dear to him and served as a major source of inspiration. He studied art at the Russian Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. He received additional training in the studio of M. Klodt. Being a nationalist and a traditionalist, he depicted numerous ethnic themes such as Mountain Ararat, Lake Sevan and varied subjects so dear and important to Armenian artists. He was very well connected to the Armenian bourgeoisie and to the well-to-do upper class. His influential connections helped me organizing many one-man exhibitions and shows around the country. In addition to his artistic creativity, he was a prolific writer, novelist, essayist and author of numerous articles on many aspects and facets of Armenian life and societies.

 Photos from L to R: #1. Island St. Lazarus by Night, 1894 . Kevork Rachindjagian.

Mount Ararat, 1911.                                                                                                                                        View of An Armenian Village, 1894.

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