Collection / Armenian
Painting
The exposition of Armenian classical art starts with the copies of medieval frescos and miniatures, made by a group of Armenian painters in 1936-1951 under the supervision of the outstanding expert in Armenian art Lidia Durnovo (1885-1963). Losses and damage caused by time to fresco paintings endow the copies kept in the Museum with the value of the originals. Witnesses to the continuity of artistic traditions are the works by the greatest Armenian miniaturists of the past Toros Roslin, Sargis Pitsak and others.
The Armenian art of the eighteenth-twentieth centuries is difficult to appraise outside the context of the cultural connections with Russia, western Europe, and Eastern countries. The thread interrupted in the course of time is restored not only thanks to works with religious themes but also through artistic legacy of the Hovnatanyan family. Most comprehensively are represented the works of the brightest of the family, Hakob Hovnatanyan (1806-1881) who worked in Tiflis in 1830-1880. The series of his portraits are evidences to the spirit and atmosphere of his epoch. His portraits stress his individuality of his models, their position in the social hierarchy; they are marked by high artistic quality and interest towards finest details; all these have determined Hovnatanyan's place in the history of Armenian painting as the founder of the portrait genre.
The exposition of the Museum illustrates the art of various generations of Armenian masters, revealing common features between painters living abroad and repatriates. Its important part are the works of the famous painter of seascapes Hovhannes Ayvazovsky (1817-1900). The Gallery, after the master's museum in Theodosia, possesses the largest collection of his paintings, 62 works, among which Ayvazovsky's compositions on Armenian themes: “Byron on the Island of San Lazzaro”, and “Noah Descends Ararat”. His favourite marine scenes are combined with Armenian motives, and this makes more understandable Ayvazovsky’s concern for the fate of his compatriots who survived massacres, as well as his interest and role in the formation of the artistic biography of many Armenian painters.
A considerable part of the Museum’s exposition represents works by the classics of Armenian art and its greatest contributors Vardges Surenyants (1860-1921), Sepan Aghajanyan (1863-1940), Panos Terlemezyan (1865-1941), Eghishe Tadevosyan (1870-1936), Gevorg Bashinjaghyan (1857-1925), Martiros Saryan (1880-1972) and Hakob Kojoyan (1883-1959), whose role in the formation of Armenian art is great and undisputable. Combining the tendencies of Realism, Romanticism, and the achievements of Impressionalism, post –Impressionalism and Modernism with national traditions, they created the original essence of the Armenian culture.
In the course of time many talented and original painters were integrated into the Soviet artistic life: Martiros Saryan (1880-1972), Hakob Kojoyan (1883-1959), Sedrak Araqelyan (1884-1942), Sedrak Rashmajyan (1907-1978), Ara Bekaryan (1913-1986), Edvard Isabekyan (1914-2007), Hovhannes Zardaryan (1918-1992), Hmayak Avetisyan (1912-1978), Eprem Savayan (1909-1974) – the new range of themes connected with the names of these well-known masters stimulated the formation of the character of national culture.
An integral part of this culture was the work of a number of painters, among them Petros Konturajyan (1905-1965), Bartugh Vardanyan (1897-1978), Ararat Gharibyan (1903-1952), Harutyun Kalents (1910-1966), Hovhannes Asatryan (1914-2007), Hakob Hakobyan (1923), who worked also abroad adopting the artistic experience of the French school. Although representing various generations and artistic trends, they are united by high professional standards. Paris always attracted many Armenian masters such as Georgi Yakulov (1884-1928), Martiros Saryan (1880-1972), Vahram Gayfejyan (1879-1960), Ervand Kochar (1899-1979), who managed to preserve their individuality in the maelstrom of artistic trends; representing the avant-garde of the twentieth century, they to a great extent predertermined the ways of the development of modern Armernian painting.
Martiros Saryan’s (1880-1972) role in the formation of the Armenian painters is extraordinary. His works have become the symbol of Armenia. Saryan vividly and graphically expressed in his paintings our mentality and world outlook. At the same time he is an innovator; alongside with other prominent artists of the twentieth century, he invented new paths in modern art, and new artistic solutions. Saryan was a born master of coloure, compositions, and drawings. His gift for generalization made it possible to transform the images of his motherland into a universal image of the world, into a meditation about its creation, its mutability, the role of the man in it. At the same time Saryan’s paintings remain purely Armenian depicting its nature and people, the mountains and the sunny landscapes. Saryan’s work also combines the two polar edges of Armenian mentality – the East and the West. For the Armenians the east is not only the natural environment, way of thinking and traditional mode of life, but also a part of culture vividly expressed in the poetry of Sayat-Nova and Avetik Isahakyan, in the paintings of Vardges Surenyants (1860-1921) and the films of Sergey Parajanov.
Eastern spirit and atmosphere permeates through the pensive, dreamy and refined world of the Armenian painters of Tiflis, the centre of Armenian intellectual and cultural life in the seventeenth-twentieth centuries. The Hovnatanyan family, Gevorg Bashinjaghyan (1857-1925), Georgi Yakulov (1884-1928), Hovsep Karalyan (1897-1981), Vano Khojabekyan (1857-1922), Gevorg Grigoryan (Giotto) (1897-1976), Hakobjan Gharibjanyan (1902-1987), Vehik Ter-Grigoryan (1903-1965), Vagharshak Elibekyan (1910-1994) – here is an incomplete list of those artists represented in the exposition of the Gallery. Huge imagination, acute sense of beauty, and intense temperament characteristic of Alexander Bazhbeuk-Melikyan (1891-1966) are brilliantly expressed in the world of female images, filled with refined sensuality; this is one of the interesting sections of the Gallery’s exposition.
Saryan’s artistic inventions and his innovative plastic manner were differently transformed by a constellation of painters: Mariam and Eranuhi Aslamazyans, Lavinia Bazhbeuk-Melikyan (1922-2005), Sargis Muradyan (1927-2007), Nikolay Kotanjyan (1928), Minas Avetisyan (1928-1975), Ashot Hovhannisyan (1929-1997), Henrik Siravyan (1928-2001), Alexander Grigoryan (1927-2008), Ruben Adalyan (1929), Varos Shahmuradyan (1940-1977), Seyran Khatlamajyan (1937-1994), varying by their artistic temperament, nevertheless they share common features. The striving to combine the national traditions with the achievements of modern art as a whole is characteristic of those painters and Armenian art in general.
The artistic mentality of the Armenian masters, with their disposition towards generalization and metaphors, their colouristic manner is to a great extent consonant with the search for the synthesis of colour and plastic form, typical of modern art. A striking example of this are the works of Minas Avetisyan (1928-1975); endowed with outstanding sense of the emotional nature of colour, he combined the traditions of medieval Armenian painting with the experience of the post-Impressionists and Fauvists. The synthesis of form with colour is characteristic of the artistic mentality of other Armenian painters, too, among them Ashot Hovhannsiyan (1929-1997), Lavinya Bazhbeuk-Melikyan (1922-2005), Sargis Muradyan (1927-2007), Grigor Khanjyan (1926-2000), Hrachya Hakobyan (1935-1982), Anatoli Papyan (1924-2007) et. al. The exposition of the Gallery includes also works by a number of modern painters: Edward Artsrunyan (1929), Alexander Grigoryan (1927-2008), Albert Parsamyan (1935-1995), Ruben Adalyan (1929), Karen Smbatyan (1932-2008), Edward Kharazyan (1939), Henri Elibekyan (1936), Robert Elibekyan (1941), Varuzhan Vardanyan (1948-2010), Ruben Abovyan (1948), Ashot Bayandur (1947-2003), Pharaon Mirzoyan (1949), Karo Mkrtchyan (1951-2001), Aram Isabekyan (1952) and others. Introducting the viewers to the artistic search and ideals of several generations of Armenian painters, the exposition of the Museum reveals the various manifestation of their world outlook, which, changing gradually, shaped the image of modern Armenian art.
