Summery
Lusine V. Sargsyan
Key words – icon, wall-painting, “Deesis”, Jesus Christ, Mother of God, John Baptist, Saint Anne, iconography, style, Eastern Christian church painting.
This article is devoted to the iconographer Hayk Azaryan’s monumental wall-painting (“Deesis” which decorates the hall of the Diocese of Armenian Apostolic Church in Bucharest) and tempera paintings (three icons of the newbuilt Saint Anne Church in Yerevan: “Mother of God and the Child”, “St. Anne with Mother of God and the Child” and “St. Anne Embracing Mother of God”). These works reveal the author as a talented artist who has the consciousness of the iconographic canons of icons and is faithful to their true traditions. As compared with miniature painting, the art of Icon has its problems, which require new ways of solution from the artist. Painter Azaryan professionally turned miniature sample into monumental or tempera painting. The environment, in which the painter was educated and created his masterpieces up to now, has had a significant impact on his unique style of art, thanks to which his works can be seen in the overall frame of the development of the Eastern Christian religious traditions of iconography. He imports into Armenian contemporary iconography such scenes (such as the images of St. Anne), the traces of which can be observed in the Eastern and Western Christian church paintings, yet it lacks in the Armenian art. H. Azaryan’s art works highlight the parallelism of his works and worldwide Christian art directions and developments. This was the path of Armenian art since the 4th century, which continues until now.