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100

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100

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The Armenian Genocide has left an irreversible trace in our history and in our spirits and the reflection of grief, yearning, hope is woven in chain in the Armenian fine arts. When human languages is powerless to express what happened in 1915, the language of art does have the power to do so. Different generations of Armenian famous artists have continuously addressed the great iniquity and the artworks dedicated to the Armenian Genocide have always had their unique places in their art. Armenian artists greatly contributed to the global acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide thought their art. Many of these works have been exhibited to public but even more of them are unknown till today.

100 years

CULTURAL GENOCIDE

Acts and measures undertaken to destroy the culture of a nation or an ethnic group is called "cultural genocide". Many facts prove that simultaneous with the massacres and deportation of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, the government of the Young Turks masterminded and implemented systematic destruction of the material testimonies of the Armenian civilization.

THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

A genocide is the organized extermination of a nation aiming to put an end to their collective existence. The extermination of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and the surrounding regions during 1915-1923 is called the Armenian Genocide. Those massacres were masterminded and perpetrated by the government of Young Turks and were later finalized by the Kemalist government.

100 arts

The anguish of the Armenian Genocide, which is being reborn with every Armenian, has its own reflection in the Armenian fine arts. Many Armenian well known artists have created artworks both in Armenia and in Diaspora that are the speaking witness of the Armenian great pain, loss and yearning. These artworks are also ode to the Armenian viable genes, will power of giving birth, living and creation. Genocide is the type of crime that does have any expiration date. Human speech is sometimes powerless in expressing those things that are possible to express only through art. These 100 artworks will continuously tell the world about the unhealed wound of the Armenian, millions of innocent victims, demolished heartlands, bowed churches, lost homeland and infinite belief. The power of art is undeniable and artworks are eternal.

Artist:

Edward Arzrunian

Title:

The Refugees in Etjmiatsin, 1968

Location:

National Gallery of Armenian, Yerevan

Artist: Edward Arzrunian
Title: The Refugees in Etjmiatsin, 1968
Location: National Gallery of Armenian, Yerevan

In Soviet Armenia there was a silence about the Armenian Genocide. The authorities of USSR had an agreement with Turkey of not mentioning the Armenian Genocide in Armenia. It was prohibited for the Armenian artists to cover the theme of Genocide in their canvases till the 60-ies. And only in 1965 when the Genocide Memorial monument was built in the memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide, the ban wall seemed to have vanished. Armenian artists started to create works depicting the historic truth.

This work of Eduard Arzunian is one of those historic facts showing how the Armenian mother, who has escaped from exile, starvation, calamity of death, together with her children and other orphaned children would gather at the church begging for God’s shelter.

Artist:

Seeroon Yeretzian

Title:

Blooming, 1988

Location:

Private Collection

Artist: Seeroon Yeretzian
Title: Blooming, 1988
Location: Private Collection

Seeroon Yeretzian: "This canvas represents the generation(s) after the Genocide. The Genocide separated our heads (our identity) from our bodies (our homeland)."

Artist:

Eduard Isabekyan

Title:

Rapture 1, 1941

Location:

Artist's Family Collection

Artist: Eduard Isabekyan
Title: Rapture 1, 1941
Location: Artist's Family Collection

Eduard Isabekyan is from Igdir. In 1918 the artist's family migrated and pain of the loss of his motherland was so strong that he didn’t want to go back to Igdir that had been left in the hands of the enemy. Eduard Isabekyan wrote: "You dear, didn’t you have feet to migrate with us, so that we took you to the other side of Araz as well. You remained in order to be geographical concept of "alive dead"..."

Artist:

Simon Galstyan

Title:

The Nation Will Sign, 1960

Location:

National Gallery of Armenian, Yerevan

Artist: Simon Galstyan
Title: The Nation Will Sign, 1960
Location: National Gallery of Armenian, Yerevan

As many Armenian artist, Simon Galstyan depicted Komitas Archimandrite as a symbol of perpetuation of the nation, who had experienced the Genocide. The barbarically demolished room and the atrocities still carried out by the Turkish officers go to the background. Seeing the suffered glance of Komitas dressed all in white and at the same time the unsurrendered posture…

And the nation never stopped singing.

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shared arts

Artist:

Adriana Angolian