East in Fairy Tales and Dreams

He was born in Nakhichevan-on-Don, also known as New Nakhichevan, an Armenian-populated town near the port city Rostov-on-Don, located on the southern Russia.

The city was founded in 1779 by Armenians from Crimea, with the support of Catherine the Great, the empress regnant of All Russia. Sarian's ancestors are from the city of Ani, the medieval capital of Armenia.

Sarian received his artistic education at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture (1897-1903).

Sarian’s works were regularly displayed at numerous major exhibitions in Russia. The artist gained wide critical acclaim for his bold experimentations with color and innovative spirit. He also took part in a number of exhibitions abroad, for example in Rome (1911), London (1912), and Malmö (1914). His paintings, characterized by their exceptionally bright and saturated colors, make Sarian one of the most interesting colorists of the early 20th century.

Louis Aragon, a French poet who was one of the leading figures of the surrealist movement has also commented on the specific nature of Sarian’s use of color and light: “His light is so beautiful, that the centuries must keep a place for Sarian near our Matisse and Cézanne, one of the leading places. Perhaps the place of Sarian might be even higher, as he is a painter of happiness” (“Soviet Art” Magazine, 1960, No 3, pp 7).

The first thing which captured his attention as a painter was the bright sun and the bold contrasts of rough mountainous shapes surrounding him. Later, he transformed these impressions into the main elements of his art.

Being brought up and educated abroad, Sarian was discovering the culture of his homeland both as a foreigner and an Armenian by blood.

This phase is often characterized by the blurred, ghostly-like forms, which aim to underline the poetic nature of the scenes.

In the years of 1905-1908, Sarian’s works acquired yet another layer. The contours in his works become more distinct, while the color pairings are turning rougher. The forms and figures grow more specified and accentuated, partially due to Sarian’s switch from watercolor to tempera.

The period from 1907 to 1909 marked Sarian`s switch from smooth forms towards a more stylistically ornamental style, approaching the forms which later became his signature ones. This period is usually considered the “second phase” of his “Fairy Tales and Dreams”.

Later, the “Fairy Tales and Dreams” gets spotted by critics and the audience for its unusual style in 1907 in Moscow, during the “Blue Rose” exhibition organized by an influential Russian art magazine “Zolotoe Runo” (meaning “Golden Fleece”). Works exhibited in the frames of the exhibition all gained attention for their sharp contrast with the estimated style of those years. Having a huge influence on Russian art scene the “Golden Fleece” magazine helped the “Blue Rose '' to become an epoch-making movement and trend setter.

They were hugely inspired by literature and poetry: even their name originated from a poem by a German poet Novalis, “Blue Flower”. His philosophy suggested that human beings come to know themselves through experiencing and enlivening nature, so the artists following it were encouraged to search for inspiration in nature and all its forms.

This desire for an escape from reality was triggered by the global changes. The 19th century was going through a drastic change, starting from the abolishment of slavery to the Industrial revolutions, leading towards mass urbanization. The power of the Islamic Empires was decreasing. Now was the time of European Imperialism, which kept much of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and partially Africa under its colonial rule. The British and Russian Empires were now the world's leading powers. The Russian Empire was widening its borders towards Central and Eastern Asia as well as the Caucasus.

These romanticized lands of the East and Caucasus were both offering another reality for an escape and something the Empire could use as a counterpoint helping to formulate its identity. The Industrial revolutions and their socio-cultural changes also accentuated a gap between Asia and Europe, positioning Asia as a more romanticized, ephemeral, and emotional opponent of Europe. So was the unspoken division between the Caucasus and the Russian Empire.

He wasn't only seeing something he had read about in history books or seen in romanticized paintings, but also something he had heard about from his family, something he knew he was part of but had never seen.

Those were not merely the wanderings of a Western mind through the unexplored lands and cultures, but wanderings of a man reintroduced to his own roots, who was traveling through images, sounds, and smells both unknown and so familiar to him.

The division of the created imagery into “fairy tales” and “dreams” shows how Sarian was trying to filter his impressions towards two different directions:

- symbolic representation of the East, inspired by its folklore and the huge cultural legacy;
- symbolic representation of his homeland, inspired by personal experiences.

This series is filled with a variety of symbols. One of those are the symbols of the poet and the gazelle (or sometimes Caspian red deer also called “maral”), which are linking his works both with the folkloric and literary legacy of the East and its cultural cliches.

The synthesis of these symbols was gradually transformed into one of his tools, creating Sarian’s signature style.

Later, his works became more structured and strategically spectacular.

“Fairy Tales and Dreams'' are the series which defined his style and love towards mixing the visual forms and approaches from different cultures.