Yerevan celebrates 130th birth anniversary of Armenian painter Martiros Saryan

Martiros Saryan (1880 -1972) is one of the greatest painters of the 20th century, an outstanding colorist. He was born into an Armenian family in Nor Nakhijevan (now part of Rostov-on-Don, Russia). In 1895, aged 15, he finished the Nakhichevan school and from 1897 to 1904 studied at the Moscow School of Arts. From 1910 to 1913 he traveled extensively in Turkey, Egypt and Iran. In 1915 he went to Etchmiadzin to help refugees who had fled from the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. In 1916 he traveled to Tiflis. After the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 he went with his family to live in Russia. In 1921 they moved to Armenia. While most of his work reflected the Armenian landscape, he also designed the coat of arms for Armenian SSR and designed the curtain for the first Armenian state theatre. From 1926 - 1928 he lived and worked in Paris, but most works from this period were destroyed in a fire on board the boat on which he returned to the Soviet Union.

Saryan's paintings, created in bright, saturated colors represent a new aesthetic perception enable us to understand that art is not only an imitation of reality but, it is the use of free imagination and abstraction. At the same time, Saryan adheres simple natural shapes in his paintings, always believing nature to be his main mentor.