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.
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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:
Krikor Momdjian
Title:
Komidas, 1986
Location:
Private Collection
Artist: Krikor Momdjian
Title: Komidas, 1986
Location: Private Collection
Krikor Momdjian: "This work is one of the series works I did as homage to Komidas. The composer who was also priest, was interested in the authenticity of the Armenian music. He went into Armenian villages to listen and put into music notes that he heard, as an ethno-musicologist avant la lettre. He became famous in Europe because of his concerts with his big choir. He was captured in Constantinople on 24th of April like the other Armenian intelligentsia by the Ottoman Empire. His manuscripts/music notations were destroyed. He was mistreated but saved by diplomats and was sent to Paris. Komidas lost his senses as consequence put in a psychiatric home. The last 20 years of his life he did not talk to anyone, except to his sister. I wanted to honor him inspiring me with his divine music. In my childhood listening to his music intensely in the cathedral of the Armenian cloister - seminary of Jerusalem, where I was a seminarian for three years. He is still my source of inspiration, bringing me to the source of the Armenian soul. His music evokes my admiration for the beauty of the nature and I feel the Divine Light reflected through his music and songs."
Artist:
Leon Tutundjian
Title:
Yellow Mask, 1930
Location:
Private Collection
Artist: Leon Tutundjian
Title: Yellow Mask, 1930
Location: Private Collection
Tutunjian was born in Amasia (Western Armenia). In 1915 during the Genocide he was taken to Greece together with thousands of Armenian orphans, and in 1923 he left for Paris. In Paris Tutunjian got attracted to surrealism and he found his self-expression by adopting that direction. The “unspeakable truth” that exists in Tutundjian’s art that can possible be entirely imaginative are mere forms of expression for the artists who carries the cruel images and heartbreaking emotions of childhood that cannot be told in words.
Artist:
Sergei Parajanov
Title:
Golgotha, 1979
Location:
Sergei Parajanov Museum, Yerevan
Artist: Sergei Parajanov
Title: Golgotha, 1979
Location: Sergei Parajanov Museum, Yerevan
Sergey Parajanov usually doesn't comment on his works so as each viewer could feel and describe the art on their own way. This work belongs to the series of non-described works of the master as well.
Artist:
Aram Davtyan
Title:
Orphaned, 1969
Location:
History Museum of Armenia, Yerevan
Artist: Aram Davtyan
Title: Orphaned, 1969
Location: History Museum of Armenia, Yerevan
In 1915 Armenian children were witnessing how Turkish soldiers were cruelly murdering their parents and the only dream their parents had at the moment was to see their children saved. Aram Davtyan’s "The Orphaned Child" is the collective image of the Armenian children who went through the disasters. Their eyes lost the childish pure and innocent sparkle and gained sorrow and power instead.
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Here, you can upload your artwork dedicated to the Armenian Genocide. The uploaded artwork will be published in the
SHARED ARTS section.
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Artist: Adriana Angolian
Live Memory, 1994
Artist: Adriana Angolian
Gold Universe, 2016
Artist:
Khoren Der Harootian
Artist: Khoren Der Harootian
Ani (bronze), 1963
Artist:
Alexander Sadoyan
Artist: Alexander Sadoyan
Immigration
Artist:
Alexander Sadoyan
Artist: Alexander Sadoyan
Untitled
Artist: Levon Fljyan
Our Ancestors-2 (from Pixel 2 project), 2012
Artist: Kaloust Guedel
All Men are Created Alike, 2003
Artist: Zareh
Turkish Soup Made with Armenian Bones, 1998
Artist: Arthur Lazaryan
Never Again
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