Armenian Art
Hayk
size of the country and its economic irrelavance to the world, Armenia, has
nontheless provided the world with brilliant creative minds who have
enriched the lives of the people in the world though they may not have
noticed it. With it's modesty Armenia has given the world many talented
individuals who have been instrumental in shaping modern art as we know it.
The Armenians became active in literature and many art forms at a very early
point in their civilization. Urartian metalworking and architecture have
been traced back to about 1000 B.C. The beginning of truly national art is
usually fixed at the onset of the Christian era.
The three great artistic periods coincided with times of independence or
semi-independence: from the fifth to the seventh century; the Bagratid
golden age of the ninth and tenth centuries; and the era of the kingdom of
Lesser Armenia in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. Of especially high
quality in the earlier periods were work in gold and bronze, as well as
temples, military fortifications, and aqueducts. In the early Christian
era,classical church architecture was adapted in a series of cathedrals. The
circular domes typical of Armenian churches were copied in Western Europe
and in Ottoman Turkey.
The best example of the distinctive architectural sculpture used to adorn
such churches is the early tenth-century Church of the Holy Cross on an
island in Lake Van. The architecture of contemporary Erevan is distinguished
by the use of pinkish tufa stone and a combination of traditional Armenian
and Russian styles.
Armenian painting is generally considered to have originated with the
illumination of religious manuscripts that thrived from the ninth to the
seventeenth century. Armenian painters in Cilicia and elsewhere enriched
Byzantine and Western formulas with their unique use of color and their
inclusion of Oriental themes acquired from the Mongols. Many unique Armenian
illuminated manuscripts remain in museums in the West.
The nineteenth century saw a blooming of Armenian painting. Artists from
that period, such as the portrait painter Hacop Hovnatanian and the seascape
artist Ivan Aivazovsky, continue to enjoy international reputations. Notable
figures of the twentieth century have included the unorthodox Alexander
Bazhbeuk-Melikian, who lived a persecuted existence in Tbilisi, and the
émigré surrealist Arshile Gorky (pseudonym of Vosdanik Adoian), who greatly
influenced a generation of young American artists in New York. Other émigré
painters in various countries have continued the tradition as well.
The Armenian literary tradition began early in the fifth century A.D. with
religious tracts and histories of the Armenians. The most important of these
were written by Agathangelos, Egishe, Movses Khorenatsi, and Pavstos Buzand.
A secular literature developed in the early modern period, and in the
eighteenth century Armenian Catholic monks of the Mekhitarist order began
publishing ancient texts, modern histories, grammars, and literature. In the
nineteenth century, Armenians developed their own journalism and public
theater. Khachatur Abovian wrote the first Armenian novel, Verk Haiastani
(The Wounds of Armenia), in the early 1840s. Armenian literature and drama
often depict struggles against religious and ethnic oppression and the
aspirations of Armenians for security and self-expression.