(Herrera, p. 148). Gorky committed suicide in 1948, putting an end to a promising career.
It should be understood that both Gorky and Saryan (though in different ways) were enormously influenced by the great tragedies of Armenia which include genocide, ethnic tensions and ethnic cleansing, invasions, and foreign occupation (Rand, pp. 2-3; Razdolskaya, pp. 10-12). It is also important to understand that while Saryan was fully a child of Armenia and was born to Armenian parents, he made his first journey to Armenia as an adult of 21 having lived in areas fully controlled by Russia and having been reared in Russian culture (Razdolskaya, p. 11). It is likely that these differences, coupled with the fact that the two artists had radically diverse childhood and adolescent experiences, contributed to their artistic development.
According to Nouritza Matossian (pp. 65-67), one of the most profound early influences on Gorky was the genocide that took place in Armenia. His father abandoned the family in order to avoid being conscripted into the Turkish army, leaving the family extremely vulnerable to the vicissitudes of war. For Gorky, the violence of the war, famine, and frequent flights from one dangerous sanctuary to another, followed by the death of his mother created childhood memories focused almost exclusively on trauma, suffering, and tragedy.
William C. Seitz (p. 7) maintains that Gorky admitted that his early work owed much to Picasso and Cezanne though he did not deny that he was moving away from their styles to create what would become a unique style of his own. Seitz (p. 9) states that ôduring the last five important and outrageously melodramatic years of his life, after curiously and carefully trying half a dozen favorite modes in which to paintà Gorky finally found the 'Eye-SpringÆ of Gorky from which to draw his triumphant contribution to life.ö
GorkyÆs canvases of the 1920s a...