Two Faces of Armenian Art: Gorky and Saryan Int

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

. . .
f Russian painters who were deeply attracted to symbolism and who ôimpressionistically combined musical motifs with vivid and often fantastically ephemeral ranges of colors (The Avant-Garde, p. 1).ö An ingenious perception of the world, dreaminess approaching the surreal but stopping short of immersion in this genre, and a sincere lyricism distinguished the best masters of these groups (The Avant-Garde, p. 1). Like the other members of the Blue Rose, Saryan painted fantastic themes, many of which were based on folk tales, although in significantly brighter colors and with stronger rhythmic patterns than were typical of the other Symbolists (ArtistsÆ Biographies, p. 1). Among SaryanÆs work are two series called The Fancies and Dreams. These series are said to present ôa synthesis of the aesthetic aims which the artist set himself at that time. He was striving to represent nature symbolically as a 'living entity (Armenian Painters, p. 1).Æö As of 1909, however, Saryan began to eliminate fantasy and to focus on both portraiture and representational but still symbolic art. Landscape remained a leading aspect of his art, but in the 1920s, landscape became more synthetically monumental in character with a number of pain
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Gorky Saryan, Harold Rosenberg, Ararat Saryan, Picasso Cezanne, Russiaö Rand, Saryan Rand, Despite Saryan, Calendar Gorky, Holy Tree, Nouritza Matossian, arshile gorky, gorky saryan, rand 2, biographies 1, blue rose, artistsÆ biographies 1, crimson rose, subject matter, artistsÆ biographies, drawings paintings, color palette, texas 1975 pp, arshile gorky york, born armenian parents, rand 2 62,
Approximate Word count = 3546
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)