Article by the Metropolitan Museum of Art
www.metmuseum.org

Meanwhile, in the Caucasus, nationalist movements arise as the Ottoman and Russian empires begin to collapse in the early twentieth century. Attempts to create independent republics are quashed and lands in this region are absorbed into the Soviet Union. They gain their independence only after the collapse of that state in 1991, and are then divided into the republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Russia. During this period, painters are trained in traditional European-style academies, either in Moscow or on the Continent. Martiros Saryan (1880–1972), for example, works in a Post-Impressionistic style and experiments with capturing the essence of light in his landscape and still-life paintings. One of the world-renowned painters to come out these schools is Arshile Gorky (Vosdanik Adoian, 1904–1948), who was born in Armenia and moved to New York in 1925. He is considered a progenitor of Abstract Expressionism, although his later works are profoundly affected by European Surrealism, particularly the work of Joan Miró, André Masson, and Matta. His disciple in Soviet Armenia, Artour Oshakantsi (born 1953), becomes the greatest Armenian painter in the Soviet Union. He is the founder of Abstract Naturalism and is perhaps the most well-known painter of Independent Armenia. In Soviet Armenia, where abstractionism symbolized the voice of social protest, Oshakantsi is one of the first artists to use abstraction to express his political rage. Traditional arts, like carpet weaving and embroidery, are practiced, albeit with lesser intensity and vibrancy, geared toward commercial consumption and export. Contemporary artists from the Caucasus grapple with issues of identity, displacement, homeland, political freedom, national self-assertion, and their new position within the global community.