Armenian medieval art

The colophons of the Armenian manuscripts take a special place with their original and rich information among the medieval Armenian written monuments.
In the work we have attempted to thoroughly examine the components of the Armenian colophons, the latters’ diverse ways of expression. We have done some classifications of the Armenian colophons, according to the time of writing, the authors of colophons and the content. We have individually represented the units we encounter in the Armenian colophons, if possible, comparing this all with the identical manifestations occurring in other manuscript traditions.

The monumental painting of early medieval Armenia is hardly mentioned in the studies of art history. It’s partly explained with the fact that the monumental painting on the territory of historical Armenia is mostly lost and among the scholars there has rooted an opinion that monumental painting has not been traditional. However, the study of the remains of paintings, as well as archival photographs show that in the 7th century monumental painting in Armenia has had unprecedented development and reached its high peak. Another important conclusion is that the monumental painting has had very bright pages in the history of Medieval Armenia, which has always corresponded with the periods of activation of contacts with the Byzantium. According to the studies, about thirty churches in Central Armenia has been decorated with monumental painting. The Cathedrals of Echmiadzin and Dvin have had mosaics, while the others have been decorated with frescoes, in the temple of Zvartnots mosaics were combined with murals. The surviving fragments of frescoes give us cause to assert the existence of two artistic and iconographic trends in early medieval Armenia, where one group of monuments reveals a certain closeness to the artistic traditions of the eastern provinces of Byzantium, and the other – to the metropolitan monuments. Despite Christological images have not preserved, the apse compositions reveals a various iconographic solutions. We can see the Ascension, Giving the Law, Hetoimasia, as well as the image of Virgin. In spite of the great loss and fragmentary state of the monumental painting in Armenia, they are of a great important in the context of East Christian art, as they are an inseparable part of this cultural world.

Pour le paléographe, il est plus commode de travailler avec des classifications nettes et des périodisations distinctes qu’en suivant une tradition confuse. Les styles d’écriture arménienne ne sont pas clairement définis, et il est commun de mélanger un type avec un autre. Une véritable catégorisation universelle n’est véritablement apparue qu’avec l’imprimerie, où l’idiosyncrasie du scribe laisse la place à une implacable logique des formes de lettres.

This book contains the lectures concerning the history of the exploration of the  Armenian  medieval art during 1830-1950.It represents the impact of the scholars of different nationalities in the exploration of the Armenian architecture, sculpture, mural painting, manuscript illumination, silverwork and etc

" Armenia offers a rich and hitherto almost untouched field to the folklorist, the difficulty of grappling with the language —the alphabet even of which was described by Byron as ' a very Waterloo of an alphabet'—having hitherto baffled European collectors."

So far as I can learn, the two volumes of Armenian folk tales collected by Bishop Sirwantzdiants have hitherto been accessible to English and European readers only through the medium of a rare and more or less imperfect German translation. The late Ohannes Chatschumian had begun a compilation of Armenian folklore for Miss Alice Fletcher, but the work was cut short by his early death. Prof. Minas Tcheraz, of King's College, London, has published from time to time during the last eight years, in his paper " L'Armenie," a series of interesting articles on the folklore and fairy tales of the Armenians, under the title " L'Orient Inedit. '
' He gathered these stories from the lips of the poorer classes in Constantinople, as Mr. Seklemian did in Erzroom. Prof. Tcheraz says: " The lowest strata of the population, having received no instruction, and not having changed perceptibly since the earliest centuries of our
planet, keep still intact the traditions of the past...

This paper contains memories about Armen Zarian (1914-1994),  son of Gostan(Kostan) Zarian famous Armenian writer. Armen Zarian was well known architect and the historian of the Armenian medieval architecture and was active in Italy, Morocco and Armenia.

A biography of this eminent female scholar emphasizing her scholarship. Her life, after her early years on Constantinople, was spent between Paris and the United States.  A pioneer in Armenian studies especially Armenian art, she was author of a dozen books and hundreds of notes and monographs.

Heute kennen wir den Aachener Dom und dessen Lebensgeschichte viel besser als je. Seit 2012 berichtet die von Helmut Maintz herausgegebene Zeitschrift über den Aachener Dom. In „Die karolingische Pfalzkapelle in Aachen, Material, Bautechnik, Restaurierung“ wird genau und gründlich über die durchgeführten Untersuchungen am Dom berichtet, mit dem Ziel, das Innere, die Fassaden und die Errichtung des Gebäudes zu dokumentieren. Über Germigny-des-Prés - die zweite Odo zugewiesene Kirche - wurden bis heute noch keine Untersuchungen unternommen.
In diesem günstigen Zusammenhang – auch wenn der Dom zu Aachen alle seine Geheimnisse noch nicht preisgegeben hat, ist ein Projekt dieser Art im Bezug auf das Oratorium von Germigny, Theodulfus’ Hauskapelle, wünschenswert. Auf jeden Fall steht fest, dass die Frage nach der Identität des Architekten von großer Bedeutung ist. Nähere Informationen zur Person dieses Baumeisters (seine Ausbildung, sein Lebensweg, seine Neigungen) werden für immer ein Rätsel bleiben, da keine schriftlichen Dokumenten zur Verfügung stehen. Wir können uns aber Odos Werk untersuchen. Mehrere Hypothesen wurden schon gestellt . Im Rahmen unserer Doktorarbeit haben wir uns mit diesen beiden Odo zugewiesenen Kirchen befasst, und mit anderen Gebäuden, die in der universitären Bibliographie mit diesen Kirchen verglichen werden können; Wir sind zum Schluss gekommen, dass die armenische Baukunsttradition den Stil beider Kirchen hat beeinflussen können , auch wenn allerdings nichts Konkretes beweisen kann, dass Odo armenischer Herkunft war. Ähnliche Gebäude wurden in anderen Ländern von georgischen, byzantinischen Baumeistern errichtet, sogar im Heiligen Land  . Unsere Ermittlung stützt sich auf die Erschlüsse der Epigraphik  - vor allem was die Inschriften in den Kirchen von Aachen und Germigny betrifft.

Keywords: Architectural prototype, canonical scenes, stylistic interactions, sculpture.

The article discusses the specific architectural prototype of the two-story churches built in Medieval Armenia. Originating and spreading in Central Asia, it underwent variations in the High Middle Ages and as a result of localization obtained the structural and artistic features typical of the art of smaller regions. According to our hypothesis, the image system of the eastern façade of the Holy Virgin church (also called Bourt‘elashen) expresses the idea of the microcosm and the sacrament of the saving cross, concluded by the figure of an “Eagle with a Lamb in Its Claws.” The high relief on the western façade depicts the famous “Donation” scene where Prince Burt‘el, the ktetor of the church, is sculpted holding the model of the building in his hand. The Mother of God with the Infant Savior is in the center. The second zone of the western façade of the church presents the scene of “Traditio Legis.” It is followed by the sculpture crowning the lower entrance, which is the "Nikopoia" variety of the Holy Virgin, when the Infant Christ is depicted in front of the viewer

The French version of an exploration of Armenian manuscript art for a vast exhibition catalogue on the occasion the 500th anniversary of Armenian printing, 1512-2012.  The exhibit was held in the famous Correr Museum in the Piazzo San Marco using book items from its rich collection with loans from the Mekhitarist Brotherhood collection at San Lazzaro in the Venice lagoon and from various collections in Yerevan, Armenia.

The English version of an exploration of Armenian manuscript art for a vast exhibition catalogue on the occasion the 500th anniversary of Armenian printing, 1512-2012.  The exhibit was held in the famous Correr Museum in the Piazzo San Marco using book items from its rich collection with loans from the Mekhitarist Brotherhood collection at San Lazzaro in the Venice lagoon and from various collections in Yerevan, Armenia.  The French version is posted below.

Հոդվածների ժողովածու նվիրված Ֆելիքս Տեր-Մարտիրոսովի հիշատակին
Сборник статей посвященный памяти Феликса Тер-Мартиросова
Collected articles in memory of Felix Ter-Martirosov

(ed.) Zaruhi Hakobyan, Lilit Mikayelyan

Երևան /Ереван/ Yerevan  2015

One of the most famous antique carpets, the Dragon and Phoenix rug now in Berlin: Museum fur Islamische Kunst, inventory # I. 4, has been unconvincingly and vaguely attributed to the 15th century as the work of Qaraqoyunlu Turkmen Dynasty.  This is in part due to late 19th and early 20th German scholarship that assumed rugs from the Near East were automatically the work of Islamic craftsmen and women, particularly Turkmen and later Ottoman, but with no precise documentation.  This general undocumented supposition also applied to Oriental carpets depicted in hundreds of Renaissance Italian paintings, although all of them are presented in a Christian context, particular associated with the Virgin Mary.  The author presents firm documentation involving both historical but especially earlier iconographical examples of the dragon-phoenix motif in Armenian art of the late 13th century, borrowed directly from the source of this coupling of animals, China during the Yuan Mongol Dynasty.  He suggests that its most convincing provenance is Armenia perhaps as early as the 14th century.

This paper is devoted to the artistic legacy of famous Armenian painter Toros Roslin who was active in 13th century in Cilician Armenian Kingdom of Armenia and especially to connections of his miniatures with crusader artworks that are related to Byzantine art.

From the early 7th century, crossed-dome churches were very popular in Armenian architecture. This provided wide possibility for their external decor, in particular of the drums. It was stimulated by the “midis” kind of masonry and local traditions of stone cutting, as well as by using pendentives in church constraction. The church drum and the dome crowning it are among the sacred parts of the church (equivalent to the apse) and, according to the Church Fathers, symbolize the Heavens. They were related to the ideas of Paradise and the New Jerusalem, which preconditioned the existence of various iconographic and symbolic compositions in the drum decoration. Among these images one can see the Apostles as the participants of the Heavenly Liturgy and propagators of the Christian doctrine (Echmiadzin Cathedral, the 620s, St. Stepanos Church of Darashamb, 17th century), birds and animals as symbols of the Garden of Eden (Oshkvank Church of Tayk, 963-973, St. Katoghike Church of Geghard and St. John the Baptist Church of Gandzasar, both of the 13th century, St. Stepanos Church of Darashamb), and fabulous creatures (senmurvs, sirens) as intermediaries between the Celestial and Terrestrial worlds (Echmiadzin Cathedral, St. John the Baptist Church of Gandzasar). One can also see large labarums on the church drums, which are the visible symbols of the Heavenly Liturgy (Harijavank, Hovhannavank, Gandzasar, all from the 13th century), as well as wall arcades. This iconography goes back to the St. Sepulchre in Jerusalem, while its symbolism is related to the Heavenly Jerusalem (Sisavan, 7th century, St. Apostles in Kars, St. Grigor Church of Abughamrents, Oshkvank Church of Tayk, all from the 10th century). Finally, especially characteristic are the portraits of commissioners who, acting as righteous ones and donators, are expecting everlasting life.

The early centuries of Armenian manuscript painting are known from a small and disparate collection of surviving works.  A general description of these works and their interrelations has thus far been difficult because there are too many lacunae, too many styles, and little supporting textual information.
I would like to use this occasion to reexamine special facets of Armenian painting from an isolated fragment of the late sixth century to the more abundant remains of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries in search of whatever coherence the works can offer.  It is hoped that these preliminary remarks on the genesis of Armenian book illumination will provoke a fertile response from an audience of specialists.  The manuscripts to be discussed in this paper are conveniently listed in chronological order in Table 1; henceforth they will be referred to by date or by manuscript number.

1925: DEDICATION
THIS LITTLE RECORD OF THE PAST IS REVERENTLY DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THE ARMENIAN HOSTS WHICH FOUGHT IN THE LAST WAR FOR FREEDOM AND OF THE GREAT ARMY OF MARTYRS WHO WERE ATROCIOUSLY TORTURED TO DEATH BY THE TURKS...

THE ancient religion of Armenia was derived from three main sources: National, Iranian, and Asianic. The Asianic element, including the Semitic, does not seem to have extended beyond the objectionable but widely spread rites of a mother goddess. The National element came from Eastern Europe and must have had a common origin with the Iranian. But it, no doubt, represents an earlier stage of development
than the Vedas and the Avesta. It is for the well-informed scholar of Indo-European religion to pronounce a judgment as to the value of the material brought together in this study. The lexical, folkloristic, and literary heritage of the Armenians has much yet to disclose. No one can be more painfully conscious than the author of the defects of this work.
He had to combine research with popular and connected exposition, a task far above his ability. The ancient material was not so scanty as broken. So analogy, wherever it could be found within the family, was called upon to restore the natural connections.

Armenian potters almost exclusively crafted the ceramics produced in the western Anatolian city of Kutahia (Kutahya), about 225 miles (360 kilometers) southeast of Constantinople/Istanbul, from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century. Armenians may have been active even earlier in this locality where various kinds of ceramics were manufactured from prehistoric times, as has been verified from twentieth-century excavations, because an Armenian colony existed there from the thirteenth century and an Armenian church from at least the year 1391.

À la fin du Haut Moyen Âge, plusieurs thèmes de l'iconographie chrétienne ayant trait à l'interprétation des scènes de l'Apocalypse montrent un plus grand recours aux motifs géométriques. Ces derniers se substituent aux éléments figuratifs caractéristiques des représentations de l'art paléochrétien. C'est particulièrement le cas des scènes tirées de la vision de saint Jean qui, étant investies initialement d'une signification ecclésiale, se voient conférer progressivement des connotations eschatologiques.

Апстракт: У раду се приказују промене које су визуелне шеме неких хришћанских представа, првенствено оних сачињених од геометријских фи-гура које су потицале из математичких и астрономских приручника, претр-пеле крајем раног средњег века. Веза која се у овој епохи успоставља између библијске иконографије и цртежа из научних рукописа нуди широко поље истраживања из многих перспектива. Овом приликом интересовање за дати феномен условљено је иконографским преображајима који су диктирани садржајем слика и њиховим новим есхатолошким тумачењима На почетку средњовековне епохе иконографски метод који користи небеске представе узете из астрономских и рачунских трактата односи се углавном на апока-липтички контекст виђења светог Јована Богослова, а међу њима су и оне које се анализирају у раду: представе Maiestas Domini и небеског Јерусалима у западној уметности од VIII до X столећа. Проучавање ових раних ико-нографских примера важно је због тога што се метод може применити и на друге теме из средњовековне верске уметности када је у питању истицање есхатолошке димензије представљених сцена. Кључне речи: хришћанска иконографија, апокалипса (откривење), есхатологија, астрономски и рачунски трактати, научни дијаграми, небески точак, илуминирани рукописи, Христос у величанству, Maiestas Domini, не-бески Јерусалим.

Among the zoomorphic and anthropomorphic images in medieval sculpture of Armenia the most mysterious and, one could say, not much traditional ones are the so-called masks. In medieval Armenian sculpture masks appeared in the décor of the churches of different historical periods: in V-VI, VII and Х-XI centuries and we can see them at such churches as St. Cross on Aghtamar, SS. Peter and Paul in Tatev, Sisavan, Bajburd and so on. Notably, these certain motives appear in the décor of high-ranking churches. Masks that we encounter on the Armenian monuments are anthropomorphic, as a rule (male and female images). It is characteristic that the masks are located in the significant space zones from the sacral point of view, i.e. on the eastern façade, on the tympans.         
It is known that depiction of masks is widespread on the monuments of both East Christian and West Christian art. Popularity of such a motive is visible in certain historical periods, which was called forth by the reference to the antic heritage. The mask motive entered the medieval Armenian art exactly through East Christian traditions, maintaining its iconographic and symbolic characteristics.

The paper focuses on three moments in the history of Cilicia and its
Catholicosate between 1375 and 1915. They relate to the period
after the fall of the last Armenian kingdom, the reestablishment of
the Catholicosate in Echmiadzin, and the crises between the
patriarchal sees of Sis, Echmiadzin, and Constantinople.

The 28 chalices described with their inscriptions date from 1722 to 1961: 7 from the 18th century, 20 from the 19th, 2 from the 20th century. The 140-page “Catalogue of the Liturgical Metalwork,” describes, illustrates, and presents all inscriptions on each of some 100 of the most important pieces of Armenian Church from the large and historical collection of formerly part of the treasury of the Catholicosate of Cilicia in Sis, now the core of the Cilician Museum in Antelias, Lebanon at the seat of the Holy See of Cilicia. It represents one of the most important and authentic pre-Genocide collections of Armenian religious art to have reached us. Despite centuries of invasion and strife by determined enemies of the Cilician state and its catholicosate, including the final solution of the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire in 1915, which resulted in the total destruction of its former capital and religious headquarters of seven centuries, these objects survived. Thanks to the desperate attempt on the part of a few clergymen to save as many of its important movable and sanctified liturgical treasures, a miraculous and representative collection is now securely preserved to be visited and admired by Armenians and non-Armenians alike. The collection is a tribute to those spiritual leaders who sacrificed everything to preserve these inanimate relics that have been touched by the grace of centuries of faith and reverence. The catalogue is divided into four parts: I. Reliquaries, pp. 158-188; II. Chalices, pp. 189-217; III. Silver Bindings, pp. 218-249; IV. Miscellaneous Liturgical Objects and Xač‘k‘ars, pp. 250-283. The work will be presented in four posts each followed by the Notes, Glossary of Technical Terms, Liturgical Vessels, Bibliography, pp. 284-297.

The 140-page “Catalogue of the Liturgical Metalwork,” describes, illustrates, and presents all inscriptions on each of some 100 of the most important pieces of Armenian Church from the large and historical collection of formerly part of the treasury of the Catholicosate of Cilicia in Sis, now the core of the Cilician Museum in Antelias, Lebanon at the seat of the Holy See of Cilicia. It represents one of the most important and authentic pre-Genocide collections of Armenian religious art to have reached us. Despite centuries of invasion and strife by determined enemies of the Cilician state and its catholicosate, including the final solution of the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire in 1915, which resulted in the total destruction of its former capital and religious headquarters of seven centuries, these objects survived. Thanks to the desperate attempt on the part of a few clergymen to save as many of its important movable and sanctified liturgical treasures, a miraculous and representative collection is now securely preserved to be visited and admired by Armenians and non-Armenians alike. The collection is a tribute to those spiritual leaders who sacrificed everything to preserve these inanimate relics that have been touched by the grace of centuries of faith and reverence. The catalogue is divided into four parts: I. Reliquaries, pp. 158-188; II. Chalices, pp. 189-217; III. Silver Bindings, pp. 218-249; IV. Miscellaneous Liturgical Objects and Xač‘k‘ars, pp. 250-283. The work will be presented in four posts each followed by the Notes, Glossary of Technical Terms, Liturgical Vessels, Bibliography, pp. 284-297.

Հոդվածը նվիրված է պատմական Հայաստանի վաղմիջնադարյան քառանիստ կոթողների վրա հաճախ հանդիպող մի հորինվածքի քննությանը, որի բովանդակությունը` նույն պատկերագրական սխեմայի առկայության դեպքում, կարող է լինել տարբեր: Դա աղոթողի դիրքով կանգնած և առյուծներով շրջապատված ֆիգուրն է: Պատկերագրական վերլուծությունը ցույց է տալիս, որ նշված հորինվածքում կարող են ներկայացված լինել ինչպես Դանիել մարգարեի, այնպես էլ Սբ Թեկղա նախավկայի հրաշալի փրկության պատմությունները, որոնք լավ հայտնի են եղել վաղ-քրիստոնեական արվեստում: