Tweet
In his monumental book ART: A NEW HISTORY (777 pages, Illustrated, Notes. Index. Bibliography. New York: Harper Collins Saheed), Paul Johnson writes that Armenian churches "have proved difficult to destroy completely or even to reduce to ruin. They were built by a sturdy race, one of the great survivors of history, and most still stand today erect and proud in their conical caps." And: "No ancient race, except the Egyptians, paid more attention to stone quality than the Armenians." Further down: "The Armenians have been persecuted as often, if not quite so long, as the Jews." Though he discusses many modern painters, Johnson ignores Sarian and mentions Arshile Gorky's name only once in passing. He calls Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900) "Russia's finest marine painter…[who] next to storms at sea, loved moonlight, because it produced a fresh set of dramatic circumstances which could be carried to the limits of credibility."
-
-
Re: art
About the Russian painter Levitan, Johnson tells us, though he was a close friend of Chekhov's, he did not paint a portrait of the writer. That's because, he explains, Levitan was infatuated with the Russian landscape and painted nothing else.
It is to be noted, Aivazosky too was acquainted with Chekhov but he too left no portrait of the writer.
I suspect both Aivazovsky and Levitan were criticized for repeating themselves.
Comment