ART HISTORY AND CIVILIZATION

THE CILICIAN STYLE

Photo: Portrait of Nazelie Oerbelian.

Hovnatanian added additional dimensions to his paintings by incorporating objects familiar to the ordinary person. Real objects free from symbolism and religious surrealism such as, belts, books,  handkerchiefs, rosaries, a section of an armchair. These objects extended the landscape of the space of the painting and brought familiarity to the paintings. They participated in the movement of the strokes and established a direct rapport with the personages. This is another innovation in Armenian art. Previously, objects or tools depicted in medieval Armenian paintings represented a symbol. For instance, the stars in a medieval painting or in an illuminated manuscript represented the church, the jar symbolized a religious ceremony, an extended hand from a saint of a holy person meant a benediction or a blessing.  This is not the case in Hovnatanian work. As the folks in America frequently say: “You get what you see and you see what you get.” The more you look at his paintings, the more you understand about his innovative art. For instance, the use of new vibrant and multi-faceted shades of colors creates harmony, balanced lines and conveys a feeling of grandeur, a certain Italian Renaissance flair without being Classical. Soft lines, gently determined contours and the incorporation of easily identified domestic and familial tools and objects add warmth to the composition, pleasant familiarity, a direct rapport and romanticism. The position of his personages is traditional and conventional accentuated by a pyramidal composition  which tends to stretch the personages toward the upper level of the painting. Is this a déjà vu experience  from El Greco’s silhouette paintings? For this representation of figures is an intentional static equilibrium and aesthetic balance which enhance a chromatic and linear construction, thus conferring upon his portraits an additional dimension of grace and spirituality.  But, despite all these new visions, sharp contrast with the colors of medieval Armenian illuminated manuscripts and despite this very dominant freedom of expression in meticulously reproducing facial expressions, despite all these characteristics of a totally brand new style of painting, Hovnatanian remained a pure, traditional Armenian artist with candor and almost religious loyalty to his predecessors ethnic tradition; A national Armenian  artistic tradition. By the same token, Hovnatian brought national ethnic Armenian painting to the level of classic conceptualism, thus remaining the last of the traditional and conservative authentic Armenian master painters and becoming the first modern Armenian painter of a new era, new artistic concept and most certainly a new sphere of realistic art of unexplored dimensions.

AIVAZOVSKY: ARMENIA’S GREATEST ARTIST.

THE FIRST MASTER OF THE ARMENIAN MODERN PAINTING ERA (1817-1900)

Ivan Aivazovsky. The Tenth Wave, 1850. Oil on canvas. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.

van Konstantinovich Aivazovsky was born in the town of Feodosia in Crimea to a poor family of Armenian  merchants.  His spent his childhood in absolute poverty. At a very early age, he displayed an amazing artistic talent. This. prompted friends of the family to send him to Simpheropol Gymnasium, a modest school offering almost a rudimentary curriculum. His artistic talent caught the attention of his teachers who used all means and resources to send him to the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts; a prestigious art school, where remarkable and extremely very-well known Russian artists and painters taught arts, painting, sculpture and various visual arts. Only  the best of the best of Russian aspiring and accomplished artists qualified to enter the academy. And Aivazovsky was one of them. At the academy, Aivazovsky excelled in landscape painting and especially in marine landscape painting. In the autumn of 1836, Aivazovsky  participated in a collective art exhibition organized by the academy. He submitted five paintings. All five paintings have been accepted and proudly displayed by the curator of the exhibition. In 1837, he entered a major art juried competition and captured the first place. The academy awarded him the “Gold Medal Award” for  two paintings he submitted: “Calm in the Gulf of Finland” and “The Great Roads at Kronstadt, both painted in 1836.