Peasants 1932

Martiros Sarian made this drawing, Peasants, with pencil on paper, and it's all about the marks, right? Look how they build up the mountains in the background. I can imagine Sarian outside, maybe in the bright sun, quickly sketching. The mountains loom, but they are made of these light strokes, almost like the air itself. Then your eye travels down to the figures in the foreground. They have shovels, so I assume they’re headed to work in the fields. I wonder what Sarian was thinking about, drawing them? Were they his neighbors? Did he know their names? The thing about drawing is that it’s so direct, it's like the artist is thinking right there on the page. It's amazing to think of how many artists have looked and drawn and made marks, each one building on what came before. Each mark echoing and answering another across time.