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 19th 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.