The future painter was born in 1880 in the town of New Nakhichevan (Nor-Nakhichevan, Nakhichevan-on-Don) - now it is one of the districts of Rostov-on-Don - in a large Armenian family. The boy had six brothers and three sisters, Martiros was the seventh child. The artist spent his childhood on a farm, where his parents owned a small plot of land.
Martiros was brought up in the Armenian spirit, since a large Armenian community lived in Nor-Nakhichevan, he sang in the church choir, and one of his school teachers was the future Catholicos of all Armenians Gevorg VI. He spoke both Armenian and Russian fluently and graduated from the Armenian-Russian city school.
Saryan began to draw not too early, according to his own recollections, he became interested in illustrations at the age of 15, when he worked in an office for the distribution of magazines and newspapers. But already at 17 Martiros entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He was very lucky with the teachers: among them were Valentin Serov, Konstantin Korovin and others outstanding artists. Time summer holidays Saryan dedicated to traveling around the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, then he got acquainted with the views of his native Armenia. As he will recall later, on the path of his development as an artist, “the most important milestone and fulcrum was his native Armenia with its unique landscapes and all the flavor of the life of its people. I have chosen this path. No other path appealed to me more than this." Saryan formulated the purpose of his work as "to express the essence of the mysterious East."
The first Armenian landscapes painted by Saryan belong to this period, 1902-1903: these are “Makravank”, “Mount Aragats”, “Buffaloes. Sevan", "Evening in the Garden", "In the Armenian Village".
During his studies, Saryan also painted the scenery for the Armenian evenings held in Moscow, thanks to which he received the first accolades in the press.
In 1903, Saryan graduated from college among the best students and continued his art education in a local portrait workshop under the guidance of the same Serov and Korovin. During these years, under the impression of traveling around Armenia, Saryan created the first cycle of "Tales and Dreams", made mainly in watercolor. The cycle is dedicated to nature and human connection with it.
After graduating, Saryan decided that he would not repeat other people's techniques that he had mastered all his life, but would find his own. “I began to look for more durable, simple forms and colors to convey the picturesque essence of reality,” the artist will say. Saryan was greatly impressed french impressionists, whose work he met in 1906-1909. Having gained new impressions, Martiros creates the paintings “To the Source”, “Hyenas”, “In the Grove on Sambek”, as well as his first self-portrait, made against the backdrop of the mountains. Thus, own style Saryan was formed mainly under the influence of Russian Symbolists and French Impressionists.
"Ararat", 1923
In 1907, paintings from the Tales and Dreams cycle were shown at the Blue Rose exhibition of young artists in Moscow. Both critics and viewers received the exhibition ambiguously. However, in subsequent years, the work of these artists - Arapov, Knabe, Krymov, Ryabushinsky, Sapunov, Saryan and others - formed a new artistic movement in Russian art. The artists continued to arrange joint exhibitions - "Wreath" and " The Golden Fleece". Saryan and his comrades exhibited together with Matisse, Van Gogh, Rodin.
Gradually, the ridicule with which Saryan's work was initially greeted changed to recognition, followed by fame. Even before the revolution, the Armenian artist managed to take a prominent place in Russian fine arts. Saryan continues to travel around Armenia, Persia, Egypt, visits Constantinople. In the wake of these trips, the paintings “Street. Noon”, “Constantinople Dogs”, “Date Palm”, “Armenian”, “Flowers of Kalaki”. Saryan devoted a separate cycle to the Persian theme. Ancient Egyptian art also made a great impression on the artist. The next period of his work is the Parisian.
Saryan also painted portraits, but in a peculiar manner: the person portrayed by the artist always became part of some complex composition, the image of a person was created on a symbolic background. He also writes based on folklore, folk decorative arts, a separate place here is occupied by khachkars. Saryan is seriously interested in Armenian architecture, salvation ancient monuments.
William Saroyan, Martiros Saryan and Victor Hambardzumyan
The revolution found Saryan in Rostov-on-Don, and in 1921, at the invitation of the authorities of Soviet Armenia, he moved to Yerevan with his family. There Saryan, who at that time was a little over 40, develops a vigorous activity: he creates the Museum of Archeology, Ethnography and visual arts, an association of artists, a society for the protection of ancient monuments, an art school. Saryan draws the coat of arms of Armenia and the curtain of the first state theater. Saryan's work became one of the symbols of the flourishing of Armenian art, which had been in decline for several centuries.
In addition, during these years, Saryan actively exhibited in Europe, introducing her to the Armenian landscapes, art and culture of his country. At the same time, Saryan's painting "Mountains" ends up in the Tretyakov Gallery. The poet and writer Avetik Isahakyan, having got to the exhibition of Saryan in Venice, calls him “the singer of Armenia”.
In 1926-1928 the artist again lives in Paris. “I had to somehow understand my own abilities and aspirations. I worked in Paris with the rapture that I had the strength. When, in January 1928, the Girard Gallery in Paris (on rue Edouard VII) staged personal exhibition of my works, it included thirty-six canvases. Almost all of these canvases were painted in Paris during 1927. In addition, several of my paintings, executed at the same time, already belonged to private owners, ended up outside Paris and were not included in the exhibition. But usually I wrote no more than ten, rarely fifteen composite canvases a year. Only in 1910-1912 did I do much more. But then I was in a kind of self-forgetfulness. And in 1927, perhaps, too. It is noteworthy that, while in Paris, the artist continued to write on Armenian themes, almost without being distracted by Parisian motives proper.
Alas, most of the paintings painted in Paris died due to a fire on the ship that transported them. Only photographs of burnt canvases have survived.
"Field poppies", 1945
“I am a muralist. Give me the sun, color, light, the general character of nature, people, type! Monumentality, generalization are in the blood of my art. Being in Paris, sincerely carried away by the Impressionists, I understood this - somewhat in contrast - with special force. My artistic convictions seemed to resist my own attempts to write in more detail and - so to speak - "crumbly". The craving for generalization survived and won, ”this is how the painter described his style, his artistic thinking. Flowers remain a separate theme of his work - the flowers of Saryan's work cannot be confused with any others.
Returning to the USSR, the artist continues to exhibit in Yerevan and Moscow, as well as illustrating books by Armenian writers and creating scenery.
After the end of the Second World War, Saryan painted one of his largest and most famous still lifes - “To the Armenians - fighters, participants in the Great patriotic war. Flowers".
Saryan lived long life- 92 years old. Until a very old age, he did not just continue to write, he endlessly searched for more and more new approaches in art. “Towards the end of my life, if we consider that at my age it is already necessary to look at what I did, whether I justified it before my conscience, before the art to which I devoted my whole life, starting from the age of fifteen, I felt that I had only outlined the path and just gotta get started. So much has been revealed to me. So much beautiful, wise, incomprehensible, as in nature itself.
Martiros Saryan (1880 - 1972) - Armenian and Soviet landscape painter, graphic artist and theater artist.
Biography of Martiros Saryan
Martiros Saryan was born on February 16 (28), 1880 into a patriarchal Armenian family in the city of Nakhichevan-on-Don (“New Nakhichevan”, now within Rostov-on-Don).
Children's and youth artist. Martiros Sergeevich always remembered these years with love:
“The little farmstead in which my father lived with his large family was located fifty miles northwest of Rostov. In this farm, abandoned in the steppe, I spent my golden childhood years. These living conditions gave me the opportunity to observe nature, animals and working peasant people.
In his other memoirs - "My Way", written a little earlier (in 1933), Saryan says:
“I have to go back to my childhood, to my childhood impressions, deeply embedded in me to this day. I will not enumerate everything that has so sunk into my soul and imprinted in me, I have already forgotten a lot, but I must remind you of one very important circumstance, which is nature itself for me. The majestic sky and the wide steppe, with mounds and “mirage mounds” on the distant horizon, made it possible to observe all natural phenomena associated not only with the seasons, but also morning, evening, day and night. Children's perception of all this is indescribably grandiose and fantastic. Along the ravines with green meadows, parted to the mounds, rivers flowed, overgrown with slender dense reeds, and along the mounds, grain fields were spread in a carpet-like manner. Finally, a working peasant with a face tanned from the sun and air, with cracked callused skin on his hands and feet, smeared with tar, the smell of which tickled our nostrils so pleasantly. Tall grasses with an endless number of flowers, with millions of multi-colored butterflies flying above them and lizards scurrying underfoot or basking in the sun. Bright sun, exhaustingly hot days, with a whole swarm of bloodthirsty insects, sometimes turning whole herds of cattle into a frantic flight and knocking down herds of sheep in heaps; furry sheepdogs burrowed into pits to hide from the heat and annoying flies. We, little children, exhausted from the heat, secretly crawled into the forbidden chestnut trees to quench our thirst with juicy melons and watermelons. All this was the subject of my childhood hobbies. That's how I got into town as an eight-year-old boy."
These childhood impressions engendered in the artist a love for nature and largely determined his interest in landscape subjects in subsequent years.
In 1895 he graduated from the city school. From 1897 to 1904 he studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, including the workshops of V. A. Serov and K. A. Korovin.
Saryan's teachers at the School were K. Gorsky, A. Korin, V. Baksheev, S. Miloradovich, N. Kasatkin, L. Pasternak, A. Arkhipov. For some time Saryan worked in the workshops of A. Stepanov and A. Vasnetsov. The latter replaced the deceased I. Levitan, for whom Saryan had to work for a very short time.
During his stay at the School, Saryan received the necessary skills. This can be judged by his works of student years. “Portrait of a mother”, “Portrait of an uncle”, a sketch of a cow are well-written works, but the individuality of the artist is not yet in them.
Classes in 1903 - 1904 in the workshop of V. Serov and K. Korovin had great importance to form an artist. Saryan, like the rest of his comrades at the School, especially appreciated Serov. According to K. Yuon, who graduated from the School in 1898, Serov was "a figure who reconciles and transforms the contradictions of the time, that artistic conscience, without which it was difficult to work."
An interesting statement about Serov by Saryan himself:
“At school, I was not fond of the work of my teachers, but we, the students,” writes the artist, “owe a lot to our brilliant teacher Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov, who, with his constant observations of us and sharp remarks, always maintained in us an intense interest in work.”
After graduating from the College in 1903, Saryan did not want to paint a picture for a diploma, being satisfied with receiving the title of "non-class artist" and, as already mentioned, stayed for another year and a half in the workshop of Serov and Korovin.
In 1901-1904 he made a trip to his historical homeland, visiting Lori, Shirak, Echmiadzin, Haghpat, Sanahin, Yerevan and Sevan.
The artist was captivated here not only by nature, the southern sun and heat, but also by that new, peculiar world in which another life, another way of life, other people and even
other animals. It was so unlike everything he had seen in Moscow. The hazy impressions of childhood were awakening in him - his life on his father's farm.
“The sharpness of the new perception,” writes Saryan, “as if coincided with my childhood world, with my temporarily dormant past world of childhood.”
The impressions, although very strong, were so new that they could not be immediately reflected in the works performed here in Armenia, but they gave birth to some kind of
still unclear, vague ideas about completely new forms of depicting nature.
From 1910 to 1913 he made a number of trips to Turkey, Egypt and Iran. In 1915, Saryan came to Etchmiadzin to help refugees from Turkish Armenia. In 1916 he comes to Tiflis and marries Lusik Aghayan, the daughter of the Armenian writer G. Aghayan.
After the October Revolution of 1917, Saryan came with his family to Russia. In 1918-1919, M. Saryan lived with his family in New Nakhichevan.
In 1926-1928 the artist lives and works in Paris.
Creativity Saryan
Saryan's work played a leading role in the formation national school Armenian Soviet painting.
Participated in exhibitions in the 1900s artistic associations"Blue Rose", "Union of Russian Artists", "World of Art", "Four Arts". The painting of P. Gauguin and A. Matisse had a strong influence on Saryan's style.
At the same time, Saryan participated in the organization of the Society of Armenian Artists and the Union of Armenian Artists. In the same year, he designed the Anthology of Armenian Poetry published by V. Bryusov.
The artist becomes the initiator of the creation and the first director of the Armenian local history museum in Rostov-on-Don. Collaborates with the Theater Workshop.
In 1921, at the invitation of the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Armenia A. Myasnikyan, he moved to live in Armenia. Since then, he devotes his life to depicting its nature. Among his works during these years were the creation of the coat of arms of Soviet Armenia and the design of the curtain of the first Armenian state theater.
In the landscape paintings of Saryan of the 20s, showing the breadth and grandeur of the unfolding panoramas, there are many correctly noticed and aptly conveyed features of the nature of Armenia. There is great persuasiveness in the way the artist captures the structure of the landscape, how he paints mountains, hills, fields, abruptly ending gorges, sometimes a lonely tree standing and a sharp shadow falling from it, and other details. However, these synthetic landscapes cannot be considered entirely copied from nature. The very task of synthesis, which boils down to conveying on one canvas the landscape of Armenia as a whole - its low, elevated and mountainous places, its valleys, gorges, rivers, etc. - requires a conditional compositional construction. The same must be said about color solution. Discarding all the various color nuances that exist in nature, and reducing the colors of the Armenian landscape to several contrasting combinations of yellow, pink, blue, blue, the artist allows a certain convention here.
But these moments of conventionality did not diminish, but strengthened the emotional sound of the landscapes, emphasized the sharpness and novelty of Saryan's perception of Armenia. All this gave reason to A. V. Lunacharsky to write:
“When I visited Armenia, I felt that Saryan is a realist to a much greater extent than I expected. Riding for long hours through stone Armenia, among the multi-colored bizarre mountains, under the constantly majestic white blessing of the patriarch of Ararat, and seeing how the sun shines here, what shadows it gives rise to, how trees grow here, animals or people move or rest - I saw in front of me the Saryan pictures in living reality… he makes his attractive constructions on the living material of “living” Armenia”.
Saryan is not limited to synthetic landscapes. In addition to landscape paintings, although in limited quantities, Saryan paints small landscapes from life. The latter are quite different. Along with landscapes of a sketchy nature, there are also completely finished ones, which are, in essence, small-sized paintings. From
we note such a masterpiece of the artist as "Aragats in the summer" (1922). On a small piece of canvas with amazing skill, the fields that go far into the depths, rising along the slope of the mountain, are conveyed, the background is closed by a majestic, sometimes snow-covered mountain. Its golden-ocher color is surprisingly faithfully conveyed in the landscape. This landscape sketch was later used by the artist when painting "Aragats" (1925), but the latter no longer has that immediacy and freshness.
In the work of Saryan in the first half of the 1920s, portraiture occupies a prominent place. Most of the portraits are graphic, but there are also a few pictorial ones. Among the latter, one should first of all highlight the portrait of the poet Yeghishe Charents (1923). This is one of the successful psychological portraits of Saryan. In it, the poet appears as we, contemporaries, knew him. Particularly expressive are the eyes, aptly grasped, scowlingly directed, as if incredulous look. Having chosen an elongated canvas format, the artist limited himself to the image of the head of the person being portrayed. Moving it slightly to the right of the center, on the left he opposes a red-brown Egyptian mask to it.
The contrast between the mask and the living face is striking. In the portrait of Charents, the artist's passion for decorative-painting tasks also affected, but this does not reduce the expressiveness of the image created by the artist. Series graphic portraits Saryan of this time was performed mainly in pencil. In the works of the artist of the pre-revolutionary years, graphics occupied a limited place; he usually used a pencil for small sketches of an auxiliary nature. As an exception, only the portrait of Alexander Myasnikyan can be pointed out.
Pencil portraits of Saryan, executed in the first Soviet years, - these are no longer cursory sketches, but completely finished works. In 1923-1925, the artist made about twenty graphic portraits of prominent public figures of Armenia. Here are portraits of the leaders of the Communist Party of Armenia - A. Mravyan, A. Ioannisyan, A. Karinyan, A. Erzinkyan - and a number of portraits of artists, writers, musicians - A. Voskanyan, A. Hakobyan, V. Papazyan, M. Manvelyan , D. Demirchyan, R. Melikyan and others. They are executed about the same. high level, it is difficult to single out the most successful among them.
Graphic works of the artist can be divided into two groups. The first includes portrait drawings and sketches from nature, the second - book illustrations.
Most of his works, exhibited in 1928 in the Parisian gallery Gérard, burned down during a fire on the ship when returning to his homeland.
In the 1930s main theme Saryan remains the nature of Armenia.
Living far from his homeland, Saryan continues to be impressed by the nature of Armenia and Transcaucasia. The Armenian landscapes executed in Paris, in contrast to the monumental works of 1923-1924, have a chamber character both in their content and in size. These are either urban and rural landscapes with narrow streets, cubic houses with flat roofs, animated by rare trees, animals, lonely figures of people, or mountain slopes with grazing sheep, valleys closed by a chain of mountains with protruding poplars in places, running fallow deer, etc. n. As in the past, during the years of travel to the East, in them the fantastic, created by the imagination of the artist, is combined with the accuracy of real observations. These new Armenian landscapes are less decorative, in places the artist uses impressionistic techniques of small strokes. But laconism, sharp contrasts of chiaroscuro connect them with old works.
Approximately the same can be said about still lifes, in which, in addition to decorative tasks, the artist strove for a plastic characterization of objects.
The nature of France and Paris itself did not attract Saryan the artist. During his stay in Paris, he wrote only four landscape studies. Three of them - the banks of the Marne in the vicinity of the city - are unremarkable in terms of picturesque, the fourth one is more interesting - the Seine in the vicinity of Paris - the view from the window of the artist's Parisian studio, written shortly after arrival, was made in decorative flat techniques. Saryan made a trip to Chamonix, but the nature of French Switzerland did not interest the artist, he limited himself to just a few pencil sketches.
The artist also paints numerous portraits ("R. N. Simonov"; "A. Isahakyan"; "Self-portrait with a Palette") and bright still lifes ("Autumn Still Life").
Saryan also worked as book chart(“Armenian folk tales", 1930, 1933, 1937) and as a theater artist (set and costumes for the opera "Almast" by A. Spendiarov at the Opera and Ballet Theater named after Spendiarov, 1938-1939, Yerevan; "Brave Nazar" by A. Stepanyan, "David bek "Tigranyan," Filumena Marturano "E. De Filippo and others).
The works performed by Saryan upon his return to Yerevan from Paris testify to the turning point in the artist's art, which, however, was outlined even before the trip. The change affected all areas of creativity, but it is most evident in landscapes. Work from nature in the field easel landscape since that time has become not only the main, but also the only method of the artist. A huge number of Armenian landscapes painted by Saryan. The variety of aspects of the image is striking. One
and the same motif, for example, the view of Ararat from Yerevan or the outskirts of the city, appears each time in a new way, depending on the lighting conditions, the state of the atmosphere. IN
Each landscape of Saryan contains a certain feeling, thought.
How significant the change that took place in Saryan was can be judged by the very first landscapes painted in the spring and summer of 1928-1929 - “A Corner of Old Yerevan”, “Blossoming apricot trees”and others. Unlike the previous decorative techniques (combinations of contrasting colorful planes), the artist now uses the method of divisionism. But even in these most impressionistic of his landscapes, Saryan differs markedly from French artists, since nature appears to him not in its instantaneous chance, which is one of the main provisions of impressionism, but in a state most typical of it.
Of the works performed by Saryan for last years, it should be noted two landscapes "Armenia" (one 1957, the other 1959). They are united not only by the common name. After a long break, the artist again turns to the tasks that were set for him in the first years after moving to Soviet Armenia. In both landscapes, and especially in "Armenia" in 1957, the artist resorts to generalized decorative solutions - large spaces are covered with one color, without shades, with contrasting juxtapositions of pink, orange, green, blue. Except for the panel "Armenian Dance" for the hall of the Union of Composers of Armenia (1959), Saryan no longer paints such landscapes - they were only an episode and did not indicate a change in the direction of the artist's art. There is a lot of difference in the color scheme of the landscapes "Armenia" in 1957 and 1959.
The next year, 1959, like the previous one, was also very productive, but landscapes prevail in the works of this year. Unlike the Byurakan landscapes of the previous two
years, depicting the Ararat valley from mountain heights, in the morning, evening and partly daytime hours, the landscapes of Saryan in 1959 are more diverse. As in previous years,
the artist makes trips to various regions of the country in the summer and early autumn, finding new aspects in the image of places familiar from the old landscapes: “Through the mist
Masis Valley”, “Gloomy Day”, “End of September”, “By the End of Summer”, “Beginning of October” and others. Less artist executed in 1959 portraits. The best of them is the writer I. Ehrenburg. Saryan has long wanted to write Ehrenburg. Such an opportunity presented itself in connection with the arrival of the writer in Yerevan. As in all his best portraits, so in this one the artist captured the physical and spiritual appearance of the writer with exceptional resemblance.
Artist's work
- "Street. Noon", 1911
- "Constantinople dogs", 1911
- "Still life. Grapes", 1911
- "Armenian woman with a saz" 1915
- In an Armenian village, 1901
- "Tales and Dreams", a cycle of watercolors, 1903-1908
- "Fairy Tale", 1904
- "The King with his daughter", 1904
- "At the foot of Ararat", 1904
- "At the spring", 1904
- "Enchantment of the Sun", 1905
- "In the Akhuryan Gorge", 1905
- "Comet", 1907
- "Evening in the mountains", 1907
- "In the shadow", 1908
- "At the well", 1908
- "Hyenas", 1909
- "Self-portrait", tempera, 1909
- Fruit Shop, 1910
- "Date Palm", tempera, 1911
- "Morning. Green Mountains, 1912
- "Flowers of Kalaki", 1914
- "Portrait of the poet Tsaturyan", 1915
Bibliography
- Voloshin M.A. Saryan // Apollo. - 1913.
- Mikhailov A. I. Martiros Sergeevich Saryan. - M., 1958.
- Drampyan R. Saryan. - M., 1964.
- Zurabyan T.S. Paints of different times. - Soviet Russia, 1970.
When writing this article, materials from such sites were used:en.wikipedia.org
If you find inaccuracies or want to supplement this article, send us information to email address admin@site, we and our readers will be very grateful to you.
"All the canvases of Saryan seem to me wonderful flowers - they are flowers of the earth in the broadest sense of the word. Flowers - mountains, flowers - trees, flowers of kind faces." Illarion Golitsin.
Martiros Saryan occupies an exceptional place among Armenian painters. The artist and his paintings are famous far beyond the borders of the state. The mighty color of his painting absorbed the hot colors of Armenia. His work is unusually unique. His paintings are a joyful song about Armenia. Saryan's manner never turns into mannerism. The artist is constantly creating, he is an inspired and passionate artist, giving to the last drop of himself to his beloved work - painting.
The name Saryan is associated with the scorching southern sun, deep blue shadows, nature in summer attire, a generous abundance of flowers, fruits, swarthy, with huge eyes, like Egyptian masks, faces of oriental women. All this organically merges into a single pattern in his paintings. Any picture of Saryan is recognizable at first sight. And yet, from each subsequent work of the artist breathes amazing freshness and novelty.
A man of the East, an Armenian by origin, Saryan, from contemporaries who were fond of Orientalism, does not stop at common places, exotic beauties, but prefers details seen as if from the inside. According to the subtle remark of M. Voloshin, such a view gives rise to a real hallucination of the East. And at the same time, this language is intelligible to European, as it is based on the discoveries in the painting of the early 20th century of bright, pure colors, laconic, generalized forms, expressive strokes.
Was born Saryan not in their historical homeland, but in the city on the Don Nakhichevan, the current Rostov-on-Don. Early childhood was spent on a farm in the steppe, on the banks of the Sambek River, where his father, a skilled carpenter, built a house for his large family. Here, in the wild, among the grasses and flowers, a cheerful, playful boy grew up, who "in a dream managed to grab the moon and hide it in his bosom or, like a mirror, let out bunnies with it." This is how Saryan's early childhood was reflected in book of his memoirs "From my life". In the years of maturity, he tries to comprehend the secrets of nature, discovered in childhood. "The earth has its own soul. Its heart is in the very heart of man." "The life of nature is mysterious and amazing. A grain sprouts in the earth, grows, blooms at a given time, a grain is born again and therefore does not die. Man is the same. He does not die, since he is nature itself."
From the very first experience in drawing, Saryan got used to the fact that his art gives rise to opposite associations in the viewer - from delight to angry rejection. An artist had to be a convinced sage in his soul in order to adequately preserve his truth. With the support of his brother Hovhannes and the circle of the Armenian intelligentsia, Martiros went to Moscow, where in the fall of 1897 he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He and his friends: P. Kuznetsov, K. Petrov - Vodkin, N. Sapunov, were lucky with the teachers. They were the most significant masters of the era of the turn of the century: K. Korovin, V. Serov, I. Levitan.
Among his comrades, Saryan stood out for his sense of color decorativeness. He loves exquisite shades: purple, orange, lilac, turquoise. Their combination in the overflow of strokes resembles the plumage of exotic birds. During Exhibitions "Blue Rose" When his friends created ghostly harmonies of fountains, he was the first to turn to vague dreams of his birthplace, images of a paradise lost in the East.
Refined watercolors and tempera Saryan, inspired by the impressions of Persian miniatures, are transferred to a fabulously fantastic and at the same time, childishly fragile world. In one of them, "At the Pomegranate Tree" 1907, a mighty miracle - the tree blooms with magical strokes - feathers that pour golden rain through the blue crown. Flowers flickering in the branches look like birds, birds look like flowers. Here everything is full of transformations, mysterious meanings. A gentle antelope and a human figure seem to form a single mythical creature.
Trips to the East 1910 -1913
In Paris (1926 -1928)
Back in Armenia (1929 -1945)
http://worldartdalia.blogspot.am/2012/05/1880-1972.html
Martiros Saryan (1880 - 1972) - one of the great artists of the twentieth century, an outstanding master of color. “Color is a true miracle! - exclaimed the artist. “In combination with sunlight, it creates the inner content of the form, expresses the essence of universal existence.”
For the Armenian fine arts big figure this kind was Martiros Saryan, and the evolution of his work is therefore the most instructive.
The key to the pictorial method of Saryan has always been the principle of generalization, understood in the most different meanings: from theme and mood to spot and stroke.
Saryan's canvases, painted in bright, saturated colors, develop a new aesthetic perception, making it possible to understand that art is not just an imitation of reality: it requires freedom of imagination and abstraction. At the same time, the artist preserves simple natural forms in his works. Martiros Saryan has always considered nature to be his main teacher.
Saryan of the first half of the 1910s is a bold innovator who skillfully combined the pictorial traditions of the East with the new achievements of European art of the 20th century. The artist received recognition in Russia. His paintings have been purchased Tretyakov Gallery, some exhibited in Europe.
Martiros Saryan was born on February 28, 1880 in Russia, in the Armenian city of New Nakhichevan, near the Don River (now part of Rostov-on-Don). Saryan's ancestors came from Ani, the ancient capital of Armenia. The parents of the future artist were engaged in agriculture. There were eight children in the family, life was difficult. Meanwhile, Saryan often recalled his childhood years spent in the steppe with special inspiration. Children's perception of the world forever determined the role of natural sunlight and natural unmixed color in visual perception artist.
In 1895, Martiros Saryan graduated from the general education Armenian-Russian city school of New Nakhichevan. After graduating from school, Saryan went to work in a post office. Here, in free time he copied pictures from magazines and made sketches of interesting characters found among the office's visitors. Saryan's older brother, Hovhannes, supported Martiros' passion and introduced him to his friend, the artist A. Artsatbanyan, a student at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Appreciating the natural talent of the young man, Artsatbanyan prepared Martiros for the entrance exams.
In 1897, at the age of 17, Martiros Saryan became a student at the Moscow School.
Classes in the workshops opened at the school of the famous Russian impressionist K. Korovin and the remarkable painter V. Serov developed the professional skills of the young artist.
IN initial period Saryan's portraits and landscapes do not yet reveal the artist's individual style, but these works already testify to the skill of the novice artist.
Trips to the Caucasus in 1901-1903. became a true revelation for Saryan.
In the summer of 1902 the artist visited Ani, ancient capital Armenia. “In the colorful corners of the south, in our ancient country, I regained the fairy-tale world of my childhood,” the artist said.
Under the influence of the southern sun and the optical color effects it creates, the palette and figurative system of Saryan's first creatively independent works changes. “The most difficult period of my life is the time of the initial quest,” the artist recalls. - ... The beaten paths did not satisfy me ... I decided to follow my own aspirations ... Everything that I wrote since 1904 was an interweaving of reality and fantasy. Realities, because I wrote under the impression of what I saw; fiction because I synthesized it in my imagination."
In 1904-1907. Saryan creates a watercolor cycle "Tales and Dreams". Depicting figures of people and animals that are simple in form against the background of a diverse, yet conditional nature, Saryan achieves unusual plasticity and melody.
Some sheets of this cycle were exhibited in 1907 in Moscow, at the Blue Rose exhibition, where the works of Russian symbolist artists were presented for the first time.
Since 1908, watercolor has been completely replaced by tempera in Saryan's works. Such works as “At the well, a hot day”, “By the sea. Sphinx”, reveal the development of the artist’s colorful palette. Pure, sonorous colors fall on cardboard in separate long strokes, creating sparkling overflows. colors saturated with sunlight. Among them stands out created in 1905, the painting "Enchantment of the Sun". A simple, uncomplicated plot is built here by a harmonious combination of generalized, silhouette forms drawn bright colors. The sonorous coloristic solution of this composition precedes Saryan's acquaintance with the works of Matisse, the founder of French Fauvism. The first exhibitions of works by French artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. from the collection of S. Shchukin and I. Morozov were opened in Moscow only in 1906. Saryan expressed his first impressions of the new principles of painting by European masters in one of his letters of 1908: “Gauguin is striking in his new religion who opened the secret spiritual world savages to a European. Cezanne is incomparable, firm, convincing in his dense and sparkling painting. Van Gogh is very interesting, a restless and sick seeker. (“Martiros Saryan. Letters”, p.72). At the same time, Saryan admitted that his acquaintance with the French inspired him even more and convinced him of the fidelity of the chosen path and his views on painting.
Many Russian artists experienced in that period the influence of the new French painting. However, Saryan's works were distinguished by their special means of expression. The stylistic principles of the Armenian artist are based on the ratio of large planes of unmixed pure colors, creating a generalized characteristic of visually perceived forms and the plasticity of their movement. Saryan was close to the style of the medieval Armenian miniature, which is distinguished by the interaction of contrasting colors and simple rhythmic lines that create symbolic forms inherent in the immediacy of folk thinking. A similar feature of the artistic language was creatively developed in the works of Saryan and largely determined the originality of his stylistic devices.
In 1909, fantastic dreams were gradually replaced by more real, direct observations of nature and the surrounding world. A change in technical methods, plot motifs and the general system of artistic images developed in the subsequent period is outlined. In the paintings “Self-Portrait”, “Running Dog”, “Hyenas”, a bright, sonorous palette crystallizes, color harmonies conquer with laconicism and accuracy of figurative characteristics. During this period, Saryan actively participates in exhibitions organized by the Golden Fleece magazine.
Trips to the East 1910 -1913
Interest in Oriental culture became decisive in the development of European and Russian art of the 20th century. But in the work of Saryan, an artist of Armenian origin, turning to the East has also become an important stage in self-knowledge. The desire to know the world of the East and himself, as part of this world, led the artist during his travels to Egypt (1911) and the countries of the Middle East - Turkey (Constantinople, 1910), Persia (1913).
“I had a goal - to understand the East, to find its characteristic features in order to further substantiate my searches in painting,” the artist wrote. “I wanted to convey the realism of the East, to find convincing ways to depict this world, ... to reveal its new artistic understanding.”
“I lived in Constantinople for almost two months and did a good job during that time,” recalls Saryan. - The street, the rhythm of its life, the bright crowd and the dogs ... who lived here in whole family flocks, were of the greatest interest to me. (“From my life”, p.102). During this period, Saryan wrote exclusively in tempera on white thick cardboard, summarizing his most vivid impressions in each picture. “... When something failed, I again went to the same area to deepen my impressions, get a new impulse and for self-examination ... I had a problem - it was possible to convey the scorching heat of sunlight and the associated color contrast on cardboard more clearly and concisely ". Trying to recreate the real unfolding life of the East, Saryan enlarges the scale of his compositions, which he builds on the same plane. The volume and depth are achieved here thanks to the contrasting blue shadows that accompany the figures of women in a burqa smoothly floating along the yellow-orange streets or flocks of dogs, acquiring incredible color shades in the light of the hot sun.
Upon his return from Constantinople, Saryan presented his new works at the exhibition of the Moscow Association of Artists. Paintings "Wisteria", "Fruit Shop", later "Street. Noon" were acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery. This was the first time the gallery had acquired the work of a young innovative artist. Saryan's paintings, exhibited in Rome in the autumn of 1911, aroused keen interest in artistic circles.
A trip to Egypt enriched Saryan's work with new works, which became a vivid expression of his original style. In Egypt, the artist was most struck by the inextricable link between ancient culture and modernity. “When leaving the Bulak Museum, one could see people right there on the street, who seemed to be those models from whom the sculptures exhibited in the museum were carved. They have the same type of face, gestures, manner of walking with raised shoulders ... As if they were walking straight from the depths of millennia ... and these people came right into today along with the amazing monuments erected by their ancestors at the dawn of human civilization.
The idea of eternity and immortality of the spirit, embodied in Egyptian art, was in tune with the worldview of Saryan, who deeply believed that a person does not die, because he is nature itself. The masks brought by the artist from Egypt became in his work a symbol of the eternal existence of the spirit.
In 1912, Saryan again went to Armenia, this time to its northwestern regions (Ardanuch, Ardvin, Ardagan). Here, in contrast to the yellow sea of the Egyptian desert, where the contrasts of green and blue were especially sharp, the artist's eye caught softer, muted ratios of colors characteristic of the area.
In 1913, Saryan visited Persia. Having absorbed impressions about the life and culture of this country, the artist created several compositional paintings on Persian themes already in his Moscow workshop.
A new stage of creativity (1914 -1920)
Saryan was distinguished by great exactingness towards himself and an amazing instinct for the true in art. “I didn’t like my success, I was afraid to become a fashion artist,” he admitted. “I felt an urgent need to update my art, to prevent the appearance of stamps and stencils in it.”
The artist intended to continue his travels to the East, he dreamed of visiting China, Japan, and India. But the First World War completely upset his creative plans as an artist.
In the spring of 1914, Saryan leaves for Tiflis (Georgia), participates here in the work of the Armenian Ethnographic Society, travels to Gokhtan (Southern Armenia, now part of Azerbaijan). Saryan exhibits his new works, landscapes and still lifes in Moscow, at the next exhibition of the magazine " World of Art”, then participates in the Baltic Exhibition in Malmö (Sweden). One of Saryan's paintings, "Tree" (1910), remained in the collection of the Malmö Art Museum.
However further development The artist's work was interrupted by the tragic events in Armenia. “But in 1915, I learned about the troubles that again fell on the lot of Armenia. He dropped everything and left for his homeland. In Etchmiadzin and around it, I met crowds of people fleeing the genocide from Turkish Armenia... People were dying before my eyes, and I could do almost nothing to help them... I fell seriously ill, they took me to Tiflis with clear signs deep mental disorder, ”recalled Saryan.
The artist could not work for a long time. But the first thing he created after the experience was a picture depicting a huge bouquet of red flowers. The way of salvation was found: "Art should call a person to life, to fight, with timeless, universal motives to inspire him with faith and hope, and not suppress him with a description of tragic plots."
At the end of 1915, Saryan again participated in the next exhibition of the World of Art.
In 1916, together with the Armenian painters E. Tatevosyan, V. Surenyants, P. Terlemezyan, who gathered in Tiflis, Saryan founded the Association of Armenian Artists and created its emblem. “The people that barely survived sought to rally their progressive spiritual forces to heal their grave wounds,” Saryan wrote.
Has begun new stage life and creativity of Saryan: “In these days of suffering, with all my heart, with all my being, I became related to my people. And I would not exist as an artist, as a person, if this feeling of homeland had not grown in me. I dedicated all my future work to her.
On April 17, 1916, the wedding of Martiros Saryan with Lusik Aghayan took place in a rural church (Tskneti). The anthology “The Poetry of Armenia”, designed by Saryan, edited by V. Bryusov, was published in Moscow. At the end of 1917, the artist participated for the last time in the next exhibition of the World of Art.
In 1917, Saryan moved with his wife to Nakhichevan, to his mother's house, but often visits Tiflis, where the October Revolution finds him.
In the Saryan family, a son is born, Sarkis, later a literary critic, a specialist in Italian and Armenian literature.
In 1918-1919 Saryan lived with his family in New Nakhichevan. The artist becomes the initiator of the creation and the first director of the Armenian Museum of Local Lore in Rostov. At the exhibition "Lotus", where Armenian and Russian artists participated, Saryan exhibits 45 works. In addition to the early ones, there were also latest paintings, developing the oriental theme in a new quality: “Portrait of N. Komurdzhyan” (1917), “Old Tiflis” (1917), “Red Horse” (1919). The artist draws up the "Red Book" of Gr. Chalkhushyan about the tragedy of the Armenian genocide, creates a sketch for the cover of the book of poems by M. Shahinyan "Orientalia".
In 1920, the second son of Saryan, Gazaros (Lazar), later a famous composer, was born.
In 1921, at the invitation of the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of Armenia A. Myasnikyan, Saryan moved with his family to Yerevan for permanent residence. Here he organizes the State Museum of Archeology, Ethnography and Fine Arts, takes part in the creation of the Yerevan Art College and the Association of Fine Arts Workers.
In 1922, the coat of arms and the flag of Soviet Armenia were created according to Saryan's sketches. The artist captures the collective image of the revived homeland in a sketch for the curtain of the First drama theater in Yerevan.
Making trips to different regions of Armenia, the artist creates paintings in the open air, contemplating and, as it were, snatching from nature the ratios of colors that are rapidly changing under the influence of the sun. The desire to convey the real, material-objective side of nature and the life of the people leads to a quick, etude style of painting in oil. As if frame by frame, we see a sun-baked valley (“Armenia, sketch”), low adobe houses with flat roofs (“Yerevan, sketch”), summer heat (“Aragats in summer”) and the pleasant coolness of shady gardens (“Courtyard in Yerevan "). Bypassing the impressionistic style of painting, which transforms the object into a color-and-light substance, Saryan strove for a kind of pictorial drawing, in which the characteristic color and line of form are concentrated, to create a full-blooded image in its material and volumetric integrity. However, this is not a passive reproduction of what has been seen, but the ability to convey the inner essence of real life, developing in time and space, by the power of active imagination in one frozen frame.
In the works of 1924, the generalization of the image, characteristic of Saryan, recreates a picture of the world that is not limited by the borders of a given country, but activates our emotional and intellectual perception of life as a whole (Yerevan, Midday Silence, Motley Landscape, etc.) . Saryan exhibits his new works at the XIV International Exhibition (Bienalle di Venezia).
The Armenian poet Avetik Isahakyan, who lived at that time in Italy, later a close friend of Saryan, published an article in the Hayrenik newspaper (Paris, August 5, 1924), in which he assessed the artist’s work as a phenomenon of great historical importance for the development Armenian culture. “He provides a scientific basis for our painting,” the poet wrote, “or, more precisely, awakens and develops the old, since the elements of this new art live in the mists of time of our motherland.”
The Italian press also highly appreciated the art of the Armenian master. “Sarian's paintings are a vivid expression of such a strong and original temperament that they cannot fail to make a strong impression on the viewer. Both its colors and drawing deserve great attention from the point of view of the search for modern art,” wrote the Italian critic J. Sprovieri.
In 1925, for the first time in the Soviet years, Saryan's paintings were exhibited in Moscow, at the Four Arts exhibition. The works of the Armenian master were highly appreciated by the metropolitan press. In the summer of the same year, the paintings left after the 1914 exhibition in Malmö (Sweden) were sent by I. Grabar to an exhibition of Russian art at the Los Angeles Museum. At the end of the year, Martiros Saryan was awarded the title of People's Artist of Armenia.
In Paris (1926 -1928)
After the success at the exhibition in Moscow, Saryan was given the opportunity to travel abroad. “I wanted to definitely visit the capital of artists - Paris,” admitted Saryan.
In Paris, Saryan twice exhibited his works at exhibitions of Russian and Armenian art, but the main one was his personal exhibition, which opened in January 1928 in the salon of Sh.-O. Girard. The text for the exhibition catalog was written by the renowned critic Louis Vauxcelles. About forty paintings created by the artist in Paris were exhibited. The works of the Parisian period are dominated by Armenian themes, which received a qualitatively new development. Only in a few sketches Saryan turns to the embankments of the Seine, Marne, gives a view from his studio. These studies are distinguished by the ratio of soft transitions, not too strong, but pure tones. During this period, the artist also designs the play "Zuleika" by K.Gozzi for the theater of N.Baliev "The Bat".
Saryan's art enjoyed a rare success for a foreigner in Paris; the "examination", as the artist himself put it, was passed. However, today it is difficult to judge this important period creative evolution artist. On the way back to Armenia, Saryan's paintings burned on the ship. “The French ship Firzhi, which was carrying my paintings, was supposed to load eggs in the port of Novorossiysk and for this purpose took sawdust with it. The boxes with the paintings were stacked just on these sawdust... In the port of Constantinople, on a ship for an accidental reason, or deliberately, a fire broke out - the sawdust caught fire - and... only a small piece of canvas remained from my forty paintings, ”he recalled with pain artist. Only those paintings that were sold by Saryan in Paris, as well as a few sketches that he carried with him, survived.
Among them are Geghama Mountains (1927), To the Spring (1926), On the Marne (1927), From the Workshop Window (1927), National Gallery Armenia), "Gazelle" (1926).
Back in Armenia (1929 -1945)
Fate has prepared a difficult test for the artist. But, as was characteristic of the creator of amazingly life-affirming art, having mobilized his will, Saryan gradually returns to work. As A. Efros wrote, “... it was not enough to bring with you a reserve of strength and a sharpened skill. It was also necessary to find in them a correspondence with what was being done around ... Saryan had to catch up with his country, but not by an opportunist ... but by the same authentic and strict artist to himself, as he always was "(" About Saryan ", p.128).
And all around was the construction of a new Yerevan, which had previously been a randomly piled up low adobe buildings. “But when the hammers banged from all sides, when the thought began to work and the muscular hands began to work, everything changed. Yerevan gradually began to brighten and come to life.” (“From my life”, p.125). During this period, the urban landscape became Saryan's favorite genre. The laconicism of the plot basis, the extremely simplified, silhouette solution of human figures in their characteristic movement - such is the Saryan style of these years. Paintings appear one after another: “Yerevan Yard in Spring”, “Old Yerevan” (1928, Tretyakov Gallery), “Old and Newest” (1929, Russian Museum), “Zangu Banks in Yerevan”, “Corner of Old Yerevan”, “ Construction of the bridge" and others.
In 1928-1929 Saryan participated in various exhibitions in Yerevan and Moscow.
Since 1930, bright, reflecting the advanced searches of modern painting, the master's canvases have been constantly exhibited at exhibitions of Soviet art in Europe (Stockholm, Vienna, Berlin, Venice, Zurich, etc.).
In 1930 in opera house Odessa, the premiere of A. Spendiarov's opera "Almast" designed by Saryan took place, and in 1932 at the Moscow Theater. Stanislavsky - staging of N. Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Golden Cockerel (Sarian designed the second act). The year 1932 was also significant for another event in Saryan's life: the construction of his house with a workshop was completed in Yerevan. The decision to create special conditions for the artist to live and work was taken by the Armenian government back in 1924, after the success of Saryan at the Venice exhibition.
In 1934, Saryan went to Turkmenistan, created a series of paintings in which the artist's long-standing love for the East is felt. Under the editorship of the famous Armenian poet E. Charents, the poem of the Persian poet Ferdowsi "Rustam and Zohrab" illustrated by Saryan is published.
However, it was in the early 1930s that the Stalinist policy of ideological pressure on cultural figures began to be consistently pursued. The decrees of 1932 limited the freedom of creativity, the policy " iron curtain» protected Saryan from communication with Western culture, pulling his work out of the context of world contemporary artistic life.
To the demands to create a glorifying portrait of the leader of the country, Stalin, Saryan replied that he was used to painting from nature.
In 1937, 12 portraits of advanced Armenians created by Saryan were burned. statesmen and representatives of the intelligentsia who were repressed as "enemies of the people". But one of these portraits, hidden by museum workers, survived. This is a portrait of the poet Yeghishe Charents (1923).
In 1939, the artist created another large panel for the Armenian pavilion of the agricultural exhibition in Moscow. The obligatory portrait of the country's leader did not feature in the vast landscape of Armenia. I had to install a sculpture of Stalin, executed by G. Kepinov, against the background of the Saryanovsky panel.
During these years, Saryan painted very few paintings. Among his works, sketches for theatrical scenery and illustrations for books predominated.
During the Second World War (1941-1945), the artist was given some creative freedom. Saryan created a series of beautiful portraits of cultural figures. And the expression citizenship artist was the fact that his youngest son had gone to the front. After all, the fate of Armenia was also being decided. The experiences of those years found expression in the painting “From the Life of an Artist. Portrait of Lusik Saryan”, as well as in the famous self-portrait “Three Ages”. These works were innovative in the portrait genre. Through the characteristic oriental painting comparison of events at different times, the artist reveals inner life and psychological state of their models. So, the tangerine in the wife's hand in the mirror is reflected in the letter that was expected from the son. And the artist compares the age-old history of his native land, which had to be protected from the enemy, with three hypostases of his life, read as a grandson, father, grandfather.
In connection with the Victory and the return of his son, Saryan created his largest canvas in the still life genre - “To the Armenians - fighters of the Great Patriotic War.
Flowers” (1945, National Gallery of Armenia).
In 1941, the Master was awarded the State Prize for the design of A. Spendiarov's opera Almast, a new production of which took place during the Decade of Armenian Art in Moscow (1939).
In 1947, the Academy of Arts of the USSR was established, and Saryan was elected a full member. But at the same time, Saryan was charged with formalism, the most difficult in those years for an artist (1948).
Saryan was very upset by the unfounded attacks of criticism. In a fit of pain and frustration, he cut one of his best canvases 1910s - "Large Oriental Still Life". Fortunately, the young artists, with whom the Master was always surrounded, snatched pieces of canvas from Saryan's hands, the reverse side of which the artist intended to use for new works. The painting was restored, but the scars on it are visible to this day.
In 1951, Saryan went to the Uzkoye sanatorium in the Moscow region to treat his heart. Here he gradually comes to his senses, the vitality inherent in the artist and faith in the power of art return him to work. During these years, in the work of Saryan, the interest in portrait genre. In the 1950s, Saryan painted portraits of his contemporaries, not so great, but thinking and experiencing all the drama of their time. Saryan never forced the person being portrayed to pose in an artificial, quickly tiring pose. He talked with him about the most worrying questions, about the painful ones, and he involuntarily assumed his characteristic posture and facial expression. This is what the artist grasped, quickly, in two sessions, finishing the portrait.
With the coming to power of N.S. Khrushchev, the situation in the field of art has changed in many ways. Saryan also sighed more freely. The genre of landscape receives a new development in his work. The artist again travels around Armenia, creating a series of landscapes in Dvin (1952), Sevan (1953), Lori (1952), Byurakan (1957-1958). In his paintings, Ararat, caressed by the brush of the master, appears again, the characteristic mountain ranges of Armenia in the radiance of sunny colors. The works of this period were combined into the cycle "My Motherland", for which in 1961 Saryan received the Lenin Prize.
In 1965, the artist's 85th birthday was widely celebrated, and his personal exhibitions were held in Moscow and Yerevan. The master was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. The film "Martiros Saryan" was created at the "Armenfilm" film studio (director - L. Vagharshyan, text author - I. Ehrenburg).
In 1966 Saryan received State Prize Armenian SSR. A book of the artist's memoirs "From My Life" was published (in Armenian, later published in four languages).
In November 1967, the House-Museum of Martiros Saryan was opened in Yerevan. Personal exhibitions of the artist took place in Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany.
In 1971-1972, Saryan created a series of felt-tip pen drawings. In them, the artist's return to the harmonious melody and plasticity of the early watercolor cycle "Tales and Dreams" is obvious. But these drawings are distinguished by a kind of meditative immersion in the images of Armenian nature that lived in the heart and memory of the artist. The last of the drawings is dated by the Master 04 - 04 - 72, that is, a month before his death ...
“Armenia was created by the Creator and Saryan. One created the real and material, the other the pictorial and spiritual. Everything that the Creator represented when creating our mountainous homeland, Saryan created with the power of art. And today we have 2 Armenias: one is real, the other is Saryan. And they are merged together forever” (Ruzan Saryan)
Martiros Sergeevich Saryan was born on February 16 (according to the old style) near Rostov-on-Don in the city of New Nakhichevan in a patriarchal Armenian family. His childhood and adolescence were spent far from the city, on a lonely father's farm. The Saryan clan, who, like many Armenian refugees, moved from Ani to the Crimea, and then during the time of Catherine II from the Crimea to the banks of the Don, was continued by the large family of Sarkis Saryan, who lived a patriarchal life, measuredly and simply.
In 1895 he graduated from the city school in Nakhichevan, and in 1897 entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. In 1901, twenty-year-old student Martiros Saryan, having received financial assistance from his elder brother Hovhannes, made his first trip to the land of his ancestors. He traveled around Lori and Shirak, visited Ani and Edchmiadzin, Haghpat and Sanahin, Yerevan and Sevan. The impressions were so strong that he continued to come here for the next years.” I found here the world of my childhood and saw with my own eyes everything that I dreamed of as a child,” Saryan said. In search of impressions, Saryan annually travels to the lands that are kindred to his soul. In 1910 - Constantinople, in 1911 - Egypt, in 1912 - the north-west of Armenia, in 1913 - Persia, in 1914 - the south of Armenia, Gokhtan. The World War prevented the artist from seeing India and Japan. One by one there are famous paintings Saryan - "Street. Midday", "Constantinople dogs", "Still life. Grapes", "Armenian", "Portrait of the poet Tsaturyan", "Flowers of Kalaki".
M. Saryan was thirty-four years old when the First World War began, which was accompanied by greatest tragedy the Armenian people - genocide, threatening them with complete physical destruction. In 1915-1920, Saryan devoted himself entirely to patriotic activities. In 1915, Saryan arrived in Etchmiadzin to help refugees from Turkish Armenia. In 1916 he comes to Tiflis, marries Lusik Aghayan, the daughter of the prominent Armenian writer G. Aghayan. Participates in the organization of the Society of Armenian Artists. takes an active part in the creation of the "Union of Armenian Artists", in the same year draws up the famous Bryusov "Anthology of Armenian Poetry".
In 1917, Saryan came to his homeland forever with his family and selflessly set to work. Starting from 1923, the artist creates famous cycles of paintings, which a year later were shown with great success at the XIV Venice Biennale: "Mountains", "Armenia", "My Yard", "Aragats", "Yerevan". In the same years, he creates the coat of arms of Soviet Armenia and the curtain of the first state theater. Homeland becomes the main and unchanging theme of Saryan.
His attachment to his land was so great that, even after leaving for Paris in the autumn of 1926, he still continued to sing the beauty of the Armenian nature. Most of his works, exhibited in 1928 at the Gerard Gallery, burned down during a fire on a ship on the way to his homeland. But the artist, who endured the tragedy of war and massacre, managed to survive this personal grief as well. Over the next decades, Saryan's art kept pace with the times and life of the country - he creates a huge gallery of paintings glorifying his native land, creates beautiful theatrical scenery, panels and book illustrations. A wonderful poet of colors always, both in days of sadness and in days of joy, painted flowers. Saryan's flowers are special beautiful world. And in Saryan's latest works, "Earth" and the unfinished "Fairy Tale", created shortly before his death, the artist's soul - large, pure and clear - opens up to the world. His unshakable credo is fully realized.
Art that inspires a person good feelings and born of a deep faith in its future - such art does not age. It is always with a person, like hosanna to the world, hosanna to all that is beautiful on earth. And now, when humanity is going through difficult and troubled days, Saryan's life-affirming art does not just keep pace with the times, it seems to be looking at us from the future.
“Asking myself the question whether I was happy in life, I can answer quite definitely - yes. Isn’t it happiness to enter life from non-existence, to realize my Self, to see the light, the day, the sun and enjoy the countless benefits, generously, in abundance provided by the mother - nature to man... The feeling of life is the feeling of happiness..." (Martiros Saryan).
