Martiros Sarjan

Martiros Sarjan (right) together with Drastamat Kanajan

Soviet postage stamp from 1980

Martiros Sarjan ( Armenian Մարտիրոս Սարեան , transliterated Saryan ; * February 16 ^July / February 28, 1880 ^greg. In Nakhichevan on Don near Rostov on Don ; † May 5, 1972 in Yerevan ) was a Russian- Armenian painter.

Life

He first visited Armenia as a student at the Moscow Art School in 1901. Even then, the Armenian mountain landscape inspired him so much that he kept coming back over the next few years. His first works between 1904 and 1908 were realized in close contact with nature and were described as pleasures and dreams.

In the years before the First World War , Sarjan traveled to Constantinople , Egypt , Transcaucasia and Tehran to exhibit his paintings there. In 1915 he organized aid for refugees from western Armenia in Etschmiadzin after the genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

In 1916, Sarjan settled in Tbilisi , where there has always been a large Armenian community, and married Lussik Aghajan, the daughter of the writer Ghazaros Aghajan. Together with other artists he founded the "Association of Armenian Artists in Tbilisi".

Since 1921 Sarjan lived with his family in Yerevan. In the next few years he often traveled to Europe and various areas of the Soviet Union , where his works were exhibited. From 1926 to 1928 he lived in Paris . On the way back, most of the pictures from this period were burned in a fire on board a ship.

He received numerous prizes and awards and worked actively in the rebirth of Armenian culture until his death. On his initiative, the Art Academy and the National Museum in Yerevan were established.

A well-known fragment from his diary entries published in 1966 reads:

“The land is like a living creation. It has a soul. And without a fatherland, without a closer bond with their own homeland, nobody can get to know themselves and their own soul. "

Web links

Commons : Martiros Saryan - Collection of images, videos and audio files

personal data
SURNAME	Sarjan, Martiros
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Saryan, Martiros
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Russian-Armenian painter
DATE OF BIRTH	February 28, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH	Nakhchivan on Don near Rostov on Don
DATE OF DEATH	May 5th 1972
Place of death	Yerevan