Category Archives: CULTURE

Part two. Text and external context

Summary

Slavi Avik-M. Harutyunyan

Key words – theatre, cinema, performance, recipient, text, external context, Yuri Lotman, text area, imaginary world, reality, pseudo reality, spectator, mysteries, stage.

The types of mutual relations of text and external context are analyzed in the article. The external context is taking part in the forming of text’s gist process and that’s why its features and any changes within it can affect on the perception and evaluation of the artwork. Parallel to this, the opposite phenomenon is analyzed: how the text in its turn affects the context, participates in its forming process. The texts of various forms of art affect the process of forming of “living environment”, as well as they affect each other. While the problem of “text and external context” is researched, the phenomenon in which the creator of the artwork tries to blur the boarders between the artwork and the external context is also analyzed. The research of the penetration method of real life events into the art is made with the examples of the theatre, the cinema and the fiction literature. And finally, it is shown that the wide penetration of the life into the art causes the boarders between the real world and the imaginary word to become even more blurred. And not only the art becomes the reflection and formulation of the real world but the reality also starts to reflect the art which has a huge influence on the life in the modern mass culture by forming a system with particular esthetic statements and also moral, socio-political and similar standards, a system of ideas and assessments.

Types of mutual relations of text and context

Summary

Slavi-Avik M. Harutyunyan

Key words – text, context, cinema text, Yuri Lotman, Mikhail Bakhtin, artwork, specular reflection, Eden, text level, metatext, semiotics, text in text

The importance of the context and text and their influence on the creation of the meaning are thoroughly analyzed in this article. The author researches different levels of inner context and concretizes them on the example of movie, fictional and picturesque text, and also other possible variations. In interrelation with the text, the context transforms into a subsystem, and the change of context brings the change of the text meaning. In case of complex texts several contexts or different levels of contexts are viewed, that is horizontal and vertical levels each of them forming the meaning of the text in its own way. From the perspective of semiotics the phenomenon “text in text” is interpreted on different layers, which complicates the structure of text. Besides, not only the interpenetration of art into the similar type of texts is analyzed, but also the essence of interpenetration of different types of art one into another.

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.

Criteria and bases of genre identification

Summary

Slavi-Avik Harutyunyan

Key words – Genre, I. Weisfeld, S. Freilich, film, film studies, Y. Lotman, live action, historical film, musical, literary criticism, Periodic table, style, M. Bakhtin

Throughout many historical periods the interest in the issue of film genres has grown and fallen every now and then; hence, film genres and their identification issues are regularly being studied. With this regard, several theoretical approaches to film genres have been touched upon in this article. The author considers the primary genre categorizations drawn up by popular critics viewing genre as a mode of narration, conventionality and as an aspect of form. The theoretical interpretation of the emotional factors regarded as a basis for identifying film genres have been carried out.

The study reveals the major shortcomings of this classification: such as inconsistency, lack of the unified basis and a clear understanding of what can and should be taken into account while identifying.

Yet another approach to film genre creation based on the combined nature of cinematography has also been observed in details. According to this approach, along with the widely used literary principles, the cultural as well as musical features borrowed from fine arts and music, and other media of the world artistic appropriation should be observed.

The author concludes that the problem of film genres cannot be viewed without considering the issue of the style. However, the style and the language of each piece of work of art are always closely interlinked: thus the matter of film language, one of the most crucial and tricky issues in the modern cinematography, is to be considered as well.

Summary

Ruben S. Angaladyan

Key words – Paris, Soviet Armenia, European painting, Paris galleries, surrealism, space painting, sculpture, drawing, national epos, national traditions, large synthesis.

Ruben Angaladyan’s essay is dedicated to Yervand Kochar, who is one of the most original representatives of the Armenian and world art of the 20th century. In his work, the author presents in details the surrealistic paintings of the master created in 1923-1936 in Paris. The author regrets about Kochar’s returning to Soviet Armenia in 1936, when he was already a world famous artist. Despite the fact that in his homeland he created a series of remarkable paintings and carved magnificent sculptures of David of Sasson and Vardan Mamikonyan, but the dictatorship of Stalin did not allow Yervand Kochar to continue and complete his complex synthesis in the sphere of surrealist art.

According to M. Bakhtin’s and Yu. Tinyanov’s research

Summary

Slavi-Avik Harutyunyan 

The main aspects of the theory of genre studies by Yu. Tinyanov and M. Bakhtin are analyzed in the  article. The conclusions concerning the genre made by the two great theorists are considered to be an acquisition of new literary criticism, comparing with traditional literary criticism and existing theoretical traditional views on genre as such.

A special interpretation is given to primary and secondary genres advanced by M. Bakhtin. The first ones are considered as primary genres, which exist since ancient times and the secondary ones as relatively new phenomena. The concept of chronotope is particularly analyzed within these differentiations as an essential relationship of temporal and spatial relations, which are artistically developed in the literature. The author concludes that the key novelty of Bakhtin is to describe the adventure chronotope in the transformation of space and time and opportunity to move them in space. Considering the theoretical views of Tinyanov about the genre, the author focuses on the two most important factors that are put forward by them in understanding the genre: the historicity and the evolutionism, through which the genre is considered to be a moving phenomenon.

Summary

Alexander S. Jalalyan

The 7th century church of Akori built by Catholicos Anastas Akoretsi in his native village is the kind of Armenian Chalcedonian building, which has a typical domed hall with a pair of free-standing struts in it. Its layout structure became a basis for a number of notable churches of 12-13th centuries built in North Armenia and Georgia.

Nowadays only the foundations of this Armenian Chalcedonian church (built in Masyatsotn region (gavar) of Ararat province) have remained, as the building was destroyed during the earthquake in 1840. Zakaryans, who have adopted chalcedony in the 12th century, had the opportunity to repeat forms and types of byzantine or Georgian architecture matching with rituals of their new religion, so they chose the structure of Akori church built by Anastas Akoretsi more than four hundred years ago, which proves the commitment of Armenian chalcedonians to ancestral traditions. It is significant that not only the structure of Akori church has been repeated, but also its name has been taken and put in the new environment as Akori (Աքորի).

Thus, the representatives of Zakaryan dynasty, which had adopted chalcedony, never lost their national identity staying true to Armenian architectural traditions of centuries and consistently applying them in their new structures in North Armenia.

Summary

Hasmik S. Hovhannisyan

An irregular group of copper coins (follis) was struck in Buzantine Empire between 969 and 1092. They are known in scientific literature as “Anonymous Folles”, on which the image and the name of the emperor were replaced by the busy of Jesus Christ. The obverses of all Anonymous Folles depict Christ and the reverses have Greek legend, different types of crosses or Virgin orans effigy.

The series started during the reign of John Zemisces (969-975) and continued until the monetaryreform of Alexius I (1081-1118), in 1092. Simultaneously with the anonymous types, Constantine X (1056-1067) restarted the minting of folles that bear the image of the emperor.

Since the 19^th century, the Anonymous Folles have been in the limelight of numismatists, who offered various modifications to its attribution and chronology. Their classification, chronology and the role in the economic life have been a subject of disputes among researchers up to present.

The Anonymous Folles are iconographically divided into classes in alphabetical sequence. The chronology of these classes has been difficult to establish. The research is partly based on overstruck coins in order to attribute each class to a particular emperor. Many Anonymous Folles were overstruck on older coins that were withdrawn from circulation, which helps to establish the chronological sequence of classes.

The copper coins of the Byzantine Empire were widespread in Armenia, the proof of which are the large amount of the folles found during archeological excavations and accidental finds. They contain precise data on the geography of the findings and their archeological milieu.

Anonymous Folles were in wide circulation in Armenia for a long time. Although the minting of these coins was stopped in Byzantium, their circulation continued in Armenia; event at the time when it was under Seljuk authority. These coins are a reliable source and rich material for the research on the economic, political, cultural and other spheres of that period.

According to artefacts of Lori and Sevan basin

Summary

Meri S. Keshishyan

The iconography of bronze belts of the Late Bronze (15-11th centuries B.C.) and Early Iron (10-7th centuries B.C.) ages in Armenia is important for the analysis of applied arts of the Highland. They come in various shapes and applications, either ornate or simple. Ornaments on the belts depict humans, animals, plants, geometric shapes and celestial bodies. Ornamented belts have been found in several archaeological sites in the Republic of Armenia (Lchashen, Akner, Sanahin, Lorout, Bjni), among which the fragment from Lchashen and the belt from Lorout are of particular iconographic interest. These artefacts attest to the knowledge, level of culture and calendar skills of ancient Armenians.

Summary

Astghik A. Babajanyan
The study refers to Armenian Christian relics and especially reliquaries. After legalization of Christian worship ecclesiastical architecture started to flourish with wide impetus, in which the construction of sanctuary-martyria at sites of martyrdom occupies a significant place as relics are an important aspect of the medieval Christian cultural heritage. First of all, the role of relics is important in the organization of holy space of the sanctuary which is comprehended as a monumental reliquary. Later the role of relics increased at such an extent that portable reliquaries were made to keep relics. Their forms became important source of studying the medieval iconography.

Armenian Apostolic church also adopted the tradition of keeping relics in reliquaries. The main forms of reliquaries in Armenia were rectangular boxes, cross shaped, right hand shaped.

A comprehensive research of relics and reliquaries is impossible to introduce with one report that’s why the research is going to be continual. In this article I emphasize on the cult of John the Baptist in Armenia and the geography of spreading of his relics, introducing a unique example of a reliquary which is kept at a special treasury of the St Etchmiadzin cathedral. It was created in Adana in the 14th century and was furbished in 1670.

The uniqueness of this reliquary is in its conformation; the three forms of reliquaries accepted in Armenia – the casket, the cross and the right hand are concentrated in one. As we know, in the medieval period everything had to correspond to canonicity, thus allowing nearly no deviations.

The great interest of John the Baptist’s Reliquary is not only of its form, symbolism, inscription with important information, but it is also a wonderful piece of art, adorned with precious gems, which create harmonic coherence of subtle color shades.