View from the Banks of the River Araks 1954

Here's a painting of a landscape by Martiros Sarian, likely made with oils on canvas or board. Look at those assertive brushstrokes. It's like he's wrestling with the landscape, trying to pin it down. I imagine Sarian outdoors, squinting at the scene before him. He mixes up colors on his palette—that deep blue for the sky, earthy reds and yellows for the rocks and land. The paint is applied thickly, almost sculpted onto the surface. See how each stroke is visible, a record of his hand's movement. A diagonal slash of green suggests vegetation. It's as if he's saying, "This is how I see it, this is how I feel it." Maybe he was looking at Cezanne. Or maybe he was just trying to get something down, something urgent and true, about this place. Either way, it’s an open and expressive conversation. Painting, like any conversation, is about learning from each other, about sharing ways of seeing and feeling.