“First Armenia was painted by Saryan and then God created it”. On the life and impressive paintings of artist Martiros Saryan

Martiros Sergeyevich (Sarkisovich) Saryan (1880-1972) was an Armenian painter and illustrator who created the national emblem of Armenia and became the founder of modern painting in this country. Saryan first came to Armenia at the age of 20 and spent the rest of his life painting pictures praising its beauty. They are characterized by bright colors, rich and saturated palette, there is nothing superfluous in them to distract attention from the main idea, which the author put in most of them - admiration for Armenia and the people living there.

To the spring

Early in his career, Saryan painted extensively in watercolor, creating the stunning cycle of “Fairy Tales and Dreams.” They resemble a revitalized Art Nouveau fantasy, where reality is intertwined with fiction and it is difficult to distinguish one from the other.

Fairy Lake

Blooming Mountains

Since 1908 Saryan changes his technique and approach to painting. He prefers watercolors to tempera, realism instead of enthusiastic romanticism, and his colors become brighter and more saturated. He often paints the bright southern sun, as if wishing to emphasize this peculiarity of the weather in Armenia, where there are very few cloudy days. The characters in his paintings are worked out in more detail, with clear silhouettes, and no longer resemble some otherworldly creatures. Saryan works a lot with the correct transmission of light, which he tries to recreate through deeper and more voluminous shadows.

Walking woman

Girl's Head (Mariam Tazakhulakhyan)

He sincerely admired the works of the Fauvists and Impressionists, took some of their developments, but was always true to his own style. Saryan was also a very prolific artist - during his long life he created about 4 thousand paintings and drawings. For him, the form and color palette came first, determining the desired mood, often at the expense of some small details, because Saryan did not like to “write out the unimportant” for a long time and believed that the viewer should connect the imagination and supplement the paintings with his own ideas about what he saw in them.

View of Aragats

Persian Still Life

Saryan came from a large Armenian family with many children. His parents were not rich landowners, but still tried to give their children some education. At the age of 7 Saryan began to study at the Nakhchivan city school, and after graduation he began to work in the post office. The work was very boring, and in order not to go crazy there, Saryan began to draw visitors of the office, some of them were very colorful. Having seen the drawings, the family decided to send him to Moscow to study - in case he would grow into a real artist, it is a much more enviable share than that of a postal clerk.

Self-portrait

Portrait of the poet Alexander Tsaturyan

After withstanding a difficult competition, Saryan entered the Moscow School of Painting. He was lucky to study with the best artists, including Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin. Soon he began to paint watercolors himself, which had considerable success, such as “Lake of Fairies” or “Love”.

Love

Comete

In search of inspiration, Saryan willingly traveled. He traveled to Turkey, Egypt, Persia, and held an exhibition of his paintings in Rome, which were very well received by the sophisticated Italian public. Saryan amazingly accurately, but at the same time figuratively captured what he saw, conveying the very spirit of the place he visited. This would later become the artist's trademark, and Armenia would be associated with his colorful landscapes for many painting lovers.

lodge

Персидский дом

Armenia is in Saryan's heart, he willingly paints Armenian mountains and fertile valleys and strives to go there every chance he gets. Saryan became the talk of the town, his paintings were in the public eye, but the First World War upset everything. Traveling ended, Saryan pays more attention to public life, considers it his duty to help his compatriots. In 1915 he came to Echmiadzin, where he was so impressed by the tragedy of Armenian refugees fleeing the Turkish genocide that he almost went mad. Friends transported the artist to Tiflis. Saryan gradually recovered from the experience, spent a lot of time in the cafe “Cup of Tea”, where all the local intelligentsia gathered. There he saw his future wife Lusik for the first time, and a year later he proposed to her.

At the pomegranate tree

Женщина в маске

Saryan met the revolution of 1917 in Tiflis. He continued painting and was actively engaged in social activities: he opened several museums dedicated to Armenia and Armenian art, helped his compatriots, in particular, the poetess Marietta Shahinian. In 1921 he was invited to Yerevan, where Saryan was again engaged in the organization of museums. Three years later, he very successfully presented his works at an art exhibition in Venice.

Fruit stand

Still life and children

Critics compared his paintings to those of Matisse, paying tribute to his innovative bright coloring and orientalism. The leadership of the republic decided to pay tribute to Saryan and build a house with a workshop according to his personal wishes. However, the matter was delayed, and the house was built only in 1931, but it was built the way Saryan himself wanted: with a glass-roofed studio with an upper light.

There was also an exhibition in Paris, where the famous critic Louis Vauxcelles wrote: “Armenia was first painted by Saryan, and then God created it”.

Morning, green mountains

Yerevan

In 1937, Saryan was accused of formalism and 11 of his portraits of prominent political and artistic figures in Armenia were burned. The artist himself was saved only by the fact that he was working on a panel that was to be presented in Paris. The work had to be finished in a short period of time, and it was very difficult to find someone else capable of realizing all the creative ideas at the proper level.

Colorful landscape

Armenia

In the following years, Saryan's position was peculiar. On the one hand, he was honored, elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and on the other hand, his paintings were harshly criticized, considering them “an Armenian version of French formalism”. But during the Khrushchev thaw, Saryan's work became much easier, the criticism stopped, he began to paint landscapes in the style he loved again, and at the same time he had a hand in many remarkable portraits of prominent figures of art, such as the poetess Anna Akhmatova.

The girl's head

Portrait of poetess Anna Akhmatova

Saryan worked until his old age, and throughout his life he sincerely admired Armenia and its people, trying to reflect this admiration and love in his paintings.

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