Martiros Sergeevich Saryan

The Riabushinsky Collection, Moscow
Alexander Popov, Paris
Galerie Popoff, Paris
Acquired by the previous owner from the above, 1986
Sotheby's London, Russian Art, 12 June 2007, lot 126A

Paris, Galerie de la Scala, 101 Masterpieces: Russian Graphic Art 1790-1920, 1999, No.95

J.Stuart and I.Samarine, 101 Masterpieces: Russian Graphic Art 1790-1920, 1999, no.95, illustrated p.51 and p.95

The board is sound. The surface is slightly dirty. There are losses to the top right and bottom left corners. There is an indent about 10cm from the top right edge. There are flecks of paint loss throughout. There are areas of media staining and minor faint scratches to the bottom edge and a further few rubbings to the paint surface to the middle left inner frame edge. Unexamined under UV light. Held in a gold painted wooden frame under glass. Unexamined out of frame.
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'A challenge lay before me' wrote Saryan of his Middle Eastern paintings, 'How to convey on cardboard as clearly and laconically the scorching heat of the sunlight and the contrasting colours that it brings?' (M.Saryan, From my Life, p.102). From 1910 to 1913 he travelled extensively in the region, from Turkey to Egypt and Iran. 'I had a goal - to understand the East, to discover its characteristic features in order to strengthen the foundations of my artistic quest'. In 1911 Saryan's travels took him to Egypt where he painted an important series of works depicting rural life and landscape. The present work is a superb example of these exotic compositions, which were painted exclusively on white cardboard and recall the bright, two-dimensional art of ancient Egypt.

 

Saryan was struck by the overlap of ancient and modern culture in Egypt: 'On leaving the Museum of Bulakh one could see in the streets the people who seemed to have been the models for the sculptures in the museum'. This sense of continuity and immortality incarnated in Egyptian life and art chimed with Saryan's own philosophy of life.  The first extensive review of Saryan's work was published on his return in the influential art journal Apollon, in which the critic Maximilian Voloshin praised Saryan's early creative accomplishments: 'What he has given so far is extremely significant since it gives a new meaning to our attitude to the East. It indicates that soulless Orientalism is over' (Apollon, 1913).