Death of Martiros Sarian (May 5, 1972)

Martiros Sarian, one of the two names of Soviet Armenian culture who earned the title of Varbed (Վարպետ “Master”), was the founder of a modern Armenian national school of painting. 


He was born into an Armenian family in Nakhichevan-on-Don (now part of Rostov-on-Don, Russia) on February 28, 1880. In 1895, aged 15, he completed the Nakhichevan school. He received training in painting at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture (1897–1903) and then worked in the studios of the noted painters Konstantin Korovin and Valentin Serov. Soon Sarian became a member of a group of Moscow symbolist artists, and he began exhibiting his brightly colored paintings. He had works shown at the Blue Rose Exhibit in Moscow.


He first traveled to Armenia in 1901, visiting the regions of Lori and Shirak, the convents of Etchmiadzin, Haghpat, and Sanahin, Yerevan, and Lake Sevan. His first landscapes depicting Armenia (1902-1903) were highly praised in the Moscow press.

In 1904-1907 Sarian created the watercolor series "Fairy Tales and Dreams." Some pieces of this cycle were exhibited first at the Crimson Rose exposition in 1904 in Saratov and later at the sensational Blue Rose exposition in 1907 in Moscow. Starting from 1908, Sarian completely replaced watercolor with tempera. During this period, he took an active part in the exhibitions organized by the magazine Zolotoye Runo. 

From 1910 to 1914 he traveled extensively in Turkey, Egypt, northwestern Armenia, and Persia. These trips inspired a series of large, fresco-like works in which he attempted to communicate the sensuousness of the Middle Eastern landscapes. He also incorporated into a number of his paintings the Persian motifs he had seen in the Middle East. Like many Russian artists of the early decades of the 20th century, Sarian was greatly influenced by impressionism. He was also interested in the paintings of Henri Matisse and Paul Gauguin, as can be seen in his use of areas of flat, simplified color.

In 1915 he went to Etchmiadzin to help refugees who had fled from the Armenian Genocide. In 1916 he settled in Tiflis (now Tbilisi) where he founded the Society of Armenian Artists with fellow painters Yeghishe Tateosian, Vardges Sureniants, and Panos Terlemezian. 

He married Lusik Aghayan, daughter of writer Ghazaros Aghayan, in 1917. The newly married couple moved to Nor Nakhichevan, where Sarian continued painting. In 1920 he became director of the museum of Armenian Folklore in Rostov. In 1921 he moved to Yerevan with his wife and two children, Sarkis (future literary scholar) and Ghazar (future composer). He organized and became director of the museum of archaeology, ethnography, and fine arts (now the National Gallery of Armenia). He also participated in the establishment of the Yerevan Art College and the Artists Union of Armenia. In 1922 Sarian designed the coat-of-arms and the flag of Soviet Armenia, as well as the curtain of the First Drama Theater in Yerevan. In 1924 his works participated in the 14th Bienale of Venice. He was awarded the title of People’s Artist of Armenia in 1925.

 From 1926–1928 he lived and worked in Paris, but 40 paintings, most of his work from this period, were destroyed in a fire on board the boat on which he returned to Armenia, where he lived until his death. He spent most of his career painting scenes, especially landscapes of the homeland, often employing the impressionist technique of vivid, dappled color to capture the effects of light. He also painted many floral still lifes, as well as portraits.

In the difficult years of the 1930s, he was criticized as a formalist, since his work did not fit the state-sponsored artistic ideology of socialist realism. Sarian’s creative work was removed from the context of world modern art. A dozen of his portraits, which represented figures who were victims of the Stalinist purges, were destroyed in 1937. His famous portrait of Yeghishe Charents, however, survived. Nevertheless, he managed to continue his work and come out of this period unscathed. In 1941 he won the State Prize for his design of Alexander Spendiarian’s opera, Almast. 

Portrait of Yeghishe Charents, by Martiros Sarian

His work was subjected to new official criticism after World War II. Nevertheless, artistic freedom was more or less regained after the death of Stalin (1953), and Sarian returned to his traditional themes. His series of landscapes “My Homeland” won the State Prize in 1961. His 85th birthday was widely marked, and a documentary on his life and work was released in 1966, when he also obtained the State Prize of Armenia for the third time. The Martiros Sarian house-museum was opened in 1967, when his memoirs were also published. He was also elected as a deputy to the USSR Supreme Soviet several times and awarded the Order of Lenin three times, as well as other awards and medals. He was a member of the USSR Art Academy (1974) and the Armenian Academy of Sciences (1956).

Sarian continued his creative work almost until the end of his days. He passed away in Yerevan on May 5, 1972. He was buried at the Gomidas Pantheon, next to Gomidas Vartabed.

Birth of Martiros Saryan - February 28, 1880

The 20,000 dram banknote of the Republic of Armenia features painter Martiros Saryan, who was one of the two people publicly known and recognized in the twentieth century as Varbed (“Master”); the other was poet Avetik Isahakian (1875-1957).

Saryan was born in the Armenian community of Nor-Nakhichevan (the town is today part of the city of Rostov-on-the-Don, in the Northern Caucasus). His ancestors were from the medieval capital of Ani and had first migrated to Crimea in the Middle Ages. Afterwards, they moved to Nor-Nakhichevan, founded by Empress Catherine II of Russia in 1780. The town and its surrounding villages were the birthplace of many important figures of Armenian history, such as Mikael Nalbandian, Simon Vratzian, and Catholicos Guevorg VI, to name just a few.

Martiros Saryan studied in the public bilingual (Armenian and Russian) school of his town and graduated in 1895. After following elementary studies of art in his birthplace, he studied painting from 1897-1904 in the School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture of Moscow. He visited Eastern Armenia for the first time in 1901-1902 and sojourned in Yerevan, Vagharshapat, and Ani, among other places. This trip was crucial for his formative years, as it gave him a fundamental knowledge and appreciation of the history, culture, arts, and customs of his people. Following graduation, he completed two years of postgraduate studies in portrait technique. He was in close touch with many members of the Russian intelligentsia and participated in various collective exhibitions in Moscow. He visited Constantinople, Egypt, and Persia in 1910-1913.

From an initial period of pure realism, after 1903 he entered a phase characterized as being “fantastic” painting. His works of the 1910s, while they marked a certain return to realism, were far from being purely realistic. He merged the color thinking of Paul Gauguin, the tri-dimensional understanding of Paul Cézanne, the linear view of Vincent Van Gogh, and certain principles of Armenian medieval miniature, fresco painting, and architecture achieving an entirely “Saryanesque” quality.

He worked in the Moscow Committee to Aid Armenians during the years of the Armenian Genocide and traveled to Echmiadzin in order to help the Western Armenian refugees. The psychological shock he suffered from the dire situation of the refugees was strong enough to have him moved to a hospital in Tiflis. In 1916 he participated in the formation of the Union of Armenian Artists, together with several famous painters (Vardgues Sureniants, Panos Terlemezian, Yeghishe Tadevosian, and others). He later returned to his birthplace.

He moved to Armenia in 1921 with his family and settled in Yerevan. He was named director of the State Museum of Armenia. He also contributed to the organization of the Committee of Conservation of Antiquities and Art, of which he was president, the Union of Workers of Plastic Arts and the Art Institute of Yerevan. He created the coat of arms of Soviet Armenia together with the painter Hakob Kojoyan, who was one of the coauthors of the coat of arms of the Republic of Armenia (the one in use today), in 1921. He participated in the fourteenth Biennale of Venice in 1924. He received the Grand Prix of the World’s Fair of Paris in 1937 for his decoration of the pavilion of the Soviet Union. His works of the Soviet period, perhaps the most known by the general public, marked a return to realism.

Saryan continued to be actively involved in public life and was president of the Union of Painters of Armenia from 1945-1951. He received various honors: full member of the Academy of Arts of the Soviet Union in 1947, full member of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia in 1956, Popular Painter of the USSR in 1960, Hero of Socialist Work (1965), etc.

The house-museum of Martiros Saryan that contains a good portion of his artistic works was opened in 1967. Other paintings are housed in the State Gallery of Armenia and its branches, the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow, museums of various former Soviet countries, and private collections in the United States, France, and other countries.

Saryan passed away at the age of 92 in Yerevan, on May 5, 1972. In 1986, his statue was erected on the homonymous square, in front of the Opera. One of the central streets of the capital is also named in his honor.