Two Faces of Armenian Art: Gorky and Saryan
Arshile Gorky and Martiros Saryan are, perhaps, the best-known of all contemporary Armenian artists. Both of these artists exhibit in their work a profound love of their homeland and a capacity for creative innovation. However, where Gorky was an Abstractionist, Saryan was a Symbolist; where Gorky worked much of his adult life in the United States, Saryan is more directly associated with work in Armenia and in Russia, where he studied. This report will compare and contrast their work with reference to their artistic styles, themes, and methods.
Saryan was born on February 28, 1880, in NakhchyvanÆ-on-Don (now Rostov-on Don) and died in Yerevan, Armenia, on May 5, 1972 (ArtistÆs Biographies, p. 1). He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture from 1897 to 1903, then working in the studios of Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin. He was a member of the Moscow Symbolist group around Pavel Kuznetsov, participated in the Crimson Rose exhibition in Saratov in 1904 and the Blue Rose groupÆs Moscow exhibition of 1907 (ArtistsÆ Biographies, p. 1).
Arshile Gorky was born Vosdanik Manoog Adoian in 1904 in the village of Khorkom, Vari Hayotz Dzore in Turkish Armenia. With his family he fled Armenia in 1908 and, after his mother died, immigrated with his sister in 1920 to the United States. GorkyÆs father was already in the U.S., but there is evidence that the young Gorky did not enjoy a good relationship with his father who had remarried after the death of GorkyÆs mother (Rand, pp. 2-3).
Gorky arrived in New York as a 21-year-old, self-taught artist. He changed his name to Arshile Gorky, which roughly translates as ôbitter Achilles.ö He studied in the Grand Central School of Art in New York City. Early in his career Gorky turned to Abstractionism, though he owed much to the work of Picasso and Miro, whose influences he freely admitted...