The mountain Ararat 1885

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky painted "The Mountain Ararat" with oil on canvas. It depicts the mountain, a national symbol for Armenians, under a hazy sky. Aivazovsky was a Russian-Armenian painter, closely associated with the Russian art establishment. The luminous quality of the scene connects to the Romantic tradition, that was popular in Europe and Russia in the 19th century. But the painting also participates in a story of Armenian cultural identity. Mount Ararat is central to that identity, a repository of national history. We can explore this history through archives, newspapers, and literature from the period. The symbolic importance of the mountain has become even more powerful due to the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent displacement of Armenians from their ancestral lands, of which Mount Ararat was a part. The power of art lies in its ability to express and reflect complex social and cultural issues. Careful historical research allows us to better understand those issues.