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Gevorg
Bashinjagyan was born on 16th September 1857, in
Signakhi, a small town in eastern Georgia. In 1857, a
large group of artists, poets and journalists came to
Signakhi to mark the centenary of Bashindjagyan's birth.
"The serpentine road ascends steadily," wrote one of
them, "and I keep wondering what made people build that
town so high in the mountains. They must have sought
safety up there and perhaps they just loved their
dwellings to be almost level with the highest peaks of
the Caucasus... It is a place of undisturbed
tranquillity. The mountain air is cool and heady".
Zachary Bashinjagyan, Gevorg's father, was one
of the best-educated men in Signakhi, although the
life-style of his family did not differ much from the
simple ways of other townsfolk. A warm-hearted out-going
man, he was endowed with extraordinary linguistic
talents. A part from his native Armenian, he was fluent
in Russian, Georgian, and Persian, and was frequently
engaged as a guide and interpreter by merchants
traveling from Georgia across Armenia to Persia. Gayane
Kulidjanova, his wife, taught her own children and those
of her neighbors to read and write. All the members of
Gevorg's large family were avid readers and ardent
lovers of poetry. His father was an amateur poet himself
and took great pleasure in reciting his verse to his
children. He wrote down his best poems in a thick
notebook and Gevorg illustrated them with scenes from
fairy-tales and folk legends. The father's notebook was
for many years reverently preserved by the son. Zachary
Bashinjagyan died in 1872 during a trip to Persia.
Gevorg was fifteen at the time and studying at the local
school. Bashinjagyan finished the Arts School with
flying colors. His graduation certificate described him
as a highly promising student who would do well to
continue his studies at the Academy of Fine in St.
Petersburg. The young man decided to try his luck and
left for the Russian capital in 1878.
In the
autumn of 1879, Bashinjagyan successfully passed the
exacting entrance examinations and became a student of
the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. The huge,
impressive building on the Kadetskaya Embankment, which
he had long known from postcards, was now his Alma Mater
where he was going to spend the following three and half
years. His life in St. Petersburg was even harder than
back home. He was granted "...a monthly allowance of
eight rubles which was berely enough to pay for bread".
In 1882, he was forced to become an external student;
although his tuition was no longer free, he hoped to
make a living by selling his paintings. Bashindjagyan's
tutor was Mikhail Klodt, a man of democratic convictions
and one of the organizers of what is known as the
Peredvizhniki Group or Itinerant Exhibitions Society.
Having found an excellent teacher of drawing and
composition in Klodt, Bashinjagyan soon discovered other
masters he wished to emulate.
He completed his
studies at the Academy in 1883. His graduation work,
"Birch Grove", won him a silver medal. In the spring of
1883, the artist returned to Signakhi. In the summer and
early autumn of the same year, he made a long tour of
the Caucasus and T ranscaucasia - a venture he had
dreamed of for years. He went up to the Semyonovsky
Pass, down the giddy winding road to Lake Sevan, and on
to Yerevan, Ashtarak, Vagarshapat (at present-
Echmiadzin), and the south-western part of Armenia. From
there he he aded north and traveled over Georgia and the
Northern Caucasus, visiting many places he had never
been to before. Wherever he went, he avidly sketched the
breath-taking scenery around him. The sketches soon
developed into a series of magnificent canvases, a long
row of "windows overlooking the Caucasus and
Transcaucasia"; peaceful valleys, softly undulating
hills, misty pine forests, sunlit roads, and majestic
mountains, including Europe's highest peak Elbrus and
the lofty Ararat with its two silvery crow ns.
In 1884, Bashinjagyan made a trip to Europe,
using the scholarship that went with the silver medal
awarded by the Academy. He toured Italy, visiting
Florence, Venice, Rome, and Naples, and was fascinated
by the masterpieces of the old Italian art. He also
spent some time in Switzerland where he made several
sketches of Mt. Jungfrau. "The Alps are beautiful," he
wrote, "but they cannot win your heart if you have seen
the Caucasus."
It must be noted at this point
that he was never detachedly contemplative and aloof. A
true patriot, he was keenly interested in the past, and
genuinely concerned about the present and future, of his
native land. In 1897, he produced a series of oils
depicting Ani, once a mighty fortress and the capital of
Armenia in the Middle Ages. Bashindjagyan viewed the
proun ruins as a symbol of the grim past and also of the
undaunted spirit of his people who had courageously
stood up to all invaders.
In the 1890s,
Bashindjagyan 's oils were displayed at art exhibitions
in Moskow, Odessa, and Novocherkassk. At an exhibition
in St Petersburg in 1891, critics singled out his "Night
in the Environs of Tiflis" and "the River Debet at
Night". In 1899, he visited Paris. A year later, he went
there again with his wife Ashkhen Katanyan, daughter of
a graphic artist from Tiflis, and their three children.
The family stayed in France for more than two years. An
admirer of the Barbizon school of painting,
Bashindjagyan made trips to many places in France, once
the favorite retreats of Corot and the other founders of
that school. In 1900, he exhibited four landscapes at
the exhibition of four Armenian artists in Paris. During
his stay in France he produced almost thirty paintings.
Perhaps the best of these is "Meudon" (1901).
The artist died on 4th October 1925. In
accordance with his will, he was buried at the side of
Sayat- Nova's tomb in Tbilisi. Today, rich collections
of Bashindjagyan 's paintings are on display in the Art
Galleries of Georgia and Armenia, and in the Museum of
Oriental Art and the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
Bashindjagyan's work is deeply rooted in
Armenian culture, but he was also influenced by European
and Russian art. A bold innovator, he introduced new
forms and styles into Armenian painting which today is
unthinkable without his legacy.
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