Still Life. 

Gohar Fermanyan painted this still life, showing a basket full of fruit, sometime in the middle of the 20th century. Fermanyan was Armenian, and her career was forged during a period when the Soviet state sought to direct artistic production to serve its own ends. The still life as a genre wasn’t usually considered politically charged, but in the Soviet Union, even the depiction of everyday objects could carry ideological weight. Did an artist embrace socialist ideals? Or did they cling to bourgeois notions of art for art's sake? In a society where art institutions were closely tied to political power, the choice of subject matter, style, and even the arrangement of objects could be interpreted as a statement. To understand Fermanyan's place in this complex cultural landscape, we need to examine the archives, read period criticism, and consider the institutions that shaped her artistic path. By doing so, we can uncover the subtle ways in which even a seemingly simple still life engages with the social and political currents of its time.