Новое дыхание рисунка A New Breath in Drawing Գծանկարի նոր շունչը

Translated from Armenian

Reflecting on Rudolf Khachatryan's art, one involuntarily recalls a significant fact of his creative biography. In 1959, at the World Youth Festival in Vienna, he was awarded a bronze medal for the graphic work "Portrait of a Student." It was the first recognition of the twenty-two-year-old artist's innate talent, and in a sense it marked the acknowledgement of his art and his entry into creative life.

Fifteen years filled with searches and successes now lie behind him. During this time R. Khachatryan has taken part many times in republican, all-Union and international exhibitions and, alongside graphic art, has created paintings, among them a number of thematic compositions. Let us recall the canvases "Crowds Gone Mad," "Rebirth," "Motherhood" and "Youth." For the last two the young author received the second prize of the Komsomol of Armenia (1965). Later, in 1969, the graphic portrait of Komitas, shown at the exhibition marking the great composer's centenary, received the first prize of the Ministry of Culture of Armenia.

Over the past two years R. Khachatryan has again been working intensively in graphic art. Some of the new works have already been shown at the exhibitions "The USSR Is Our Motherland" organized in Yerevan and Moscow, and have also been exhibited in the people's democracies. The art press responded to them widely.

In the artist's studio I become acquainted with his latest works. They are portraits executed in pencil, often against a landscape background, and still lifes. At first glance Khachatryan's new works are perceived as a natural continuation of the earlier ones, and most of all they recall his very first drawings, as if bound to them by kinship.

R. Khachatryan's creative path began with a deep interest in youth. In the years that followed he returned to this theme only now and then. The source of inspiration for the new works, however, is entirely youth — the youthful, the revealing of the spiritual make-up of the new generation.

What does this testify to? Are the new works a return to the past? If so, then, it seems to me, only in one sense. The true path of creation lies in one's own perception of reality, in revealing the artist's "I," the emotions and experiences awakened in his inner world by the impulses of life. An artist's feelings are, within certain limits, unchanging, and it is in this sense that it has been said that "an artist creates many pictures in his life, but in fact he creates one picture — his own picture." And if the artist experiences a return in some way, then he returns only to himself.

In the course of creative work, however, the artist gains mastery and gradually perfects himself; his expressive forms crystallize and become the hallmark of his originality. It is precisely this that inspires the viewer on becoming acquainted with R. Khachatryan's new works.

Every work of art can bring a person into communion with the content invested in it. And if we remember that the content of a work of art is also an expression of its creator's human content, then it must be said that the thoughts and experiences invested in R. Khachatryan's works are also a direct response of his inner world, of his perception of reality and of life, which has received an independent artistic embodiment.

To grasp clearly what is new (in both content and form) in R. Khachatryan's latest works, let us try to compare them with the artist's early works.

In "Portrait of a Student" (1959), for example, the content of the image remains essentially within the bounds of the posed subject; that is, the viewer's thoughts do not go beyond the given state of the model. The interesting, unusual construction of the composition (the model is seen from a certain angle) and the lively, uninhibited, artistic drawing lend the subject a poetic breath and make it accessible and appealing. The sanguine "Portrait of an Old Woman" (1968) is marked by the same merits of expressive means, but with a greater emphasis on the psychology of the image.

In the latest works the new generation — with its thoughts and experiences, aspirations and dreams — appears as the principal object of depiction. In the portraits of the cameraman S. Filippov, the actor N. Burlyaev, the poet R. Davoyan, the artist's wife Natasha and others, the artist uses apt means to bring the viewer into the inner world of his heroes. The aesthetic value of these works would undoubtedly have been diminished had the artist confined himself merely to revealing the psyche of his characters. In every portrait Khachatryan also seeks to add [?] "being."

The artist rarely resorts to shading that creates a sense of volume. Everything begins and ends with line alone. Khachatryan's line is extremely delicate, smooth and melodious. In every portrait particular care is taken to harmonize the sonorous force of the line with the white plane of the paper, so as to preserve the overall perfection and finish of the drawing. It is interesting that, thanks to these qualities, the drawings are perceived as bas-reliefs executed in marble in a classical spirit.

Here there is no outward expression, no dynamic, bursting emotion; everything seems calm, peaceful, somehow poetic and above the everyday. The pure, fresh, transparent, noble atmosphere, woven by lines with a mastery that is sometimes astonishing, absorbs the viewer and involuntarily moves him to a lofty inspiration — to communion with the beauty of unspoiled [?] nature, with youthful experiences and dreams. The artist seems to compel us to forget things from which a person recoils, and reminds us of cherished thoughts that we often forget. In a word, Khachatryan's art of drawing presents itself to us as a kind of translation of reality, founded on a deep faith in seeing reality unwrinkled and clear.

From this definite idea, or philosophy, that R. Khachatryan pursues it follows that the subjects of his works are far from descriptions of everyday life, although the people depicted belong to our own surroundings and the objects in the still lifes are ordinary, everyday things. All this leads the viewer to see the artist's spiritual bond with the classics, with the art of the Renaissance — something that is, in general, not new for Khachatryan.

The artist himself stresses his kinship with classical art. It is his creed, his boundless love of and faith in nature as the most wonderful and eternal creation, the inimitable examples of whose depiction in art were given by the classics. And if we remember that contemporary art, after its unlimited formal searches and extreme manifestations of convention and abstraction, again seeks to restore to art its human depth, it becomes clear how greatly the significance of classical, and especially early classical, art rises in the development of new forms of self-expression by today's artists.

In this sense R. Khachatryan is a follower of the classics — a follower, but not an imitator. It would be more accurate to say that for him classicism is a creative way of thinking, a principle whose roots draw their nourishment not from this or that master but from nature.

The miracle is nature. It is a miracle in its every manifestation, in its every smallest detail. And on closely examining Khachatryan's expressive means we shall notice his veneration of this miracle and his striving to express in his images, in all its purity, the inspiration that nature imparts.

Alongside undeniable merits, however, other features are noticeable in R. Khachatryan's drawings that give cause for reflection and concern. Let us try to place several dozen of the artist's works of the same kind side by side and view them together. Following the content the author touches upon, we notice that the new works, regardless of the variety of their subjects, add little to one another, do not help us see more, and seem a kind of repetition. Where does this come from? It seems to me that it comes from the fact that R. Khachatryan's creative point of departure is based mainly on reasoning and logic. This is also why lived emotions and feelings do not receive a fully living, vibrant expression. The intellect acts as the primary factor.

For Khachatryan happiness is the need to dream of the beautiful. And he sees beauty in everything. Nor is it by chance that the artist cherishes such interest in and love for the details of the object depicted. True, the emphasis on details does not prevent him from achieving an integral treatment of the whole surface of the image and the tangibility of volume and atmosphere. The artist skilfully manages to fuse the part with the whole. Here he is a master, able to impart his thought to the line and to "speak" with the viewer through line. But, I repeat, because the manner of depiction is dictated mainly by the conscious mind, and sometimes by the satisfaction derived from the very process of drawing, in many cases the details do not rise to the level of art and remain in the realm of cold rendering. Hence the artist's meticulousness and the technical perfection of the drawing sometimes seem excessive.

Recalling once more R. Khachatryan's first works, I find that, in moving towards depth of content and giving ever more vivid expression to his own independent expressive language, the artist to some extent loses or, more precisely, neglects an important quality — the immediacy that gives a work of art its vitality. This is, in general, one of the most characteristic features of the contemporary understanding of the visual arts. One must not forget, however, that immediacy, emotional outburst and poetic inspiration are by no means alien to Khachatryan, and sooner or later they will speak in full voice from his pictures...

[Captions:] Rudolf Khachatryan. Portrait of a Student. 1959. Rudolf Khachatryan. Portrait of an Old Woman. 1968. Rudolf Khachatryan. Self-Portrait. 1972. Rudolf Khachatryan. Portrait of the Cameraman S. Filippov. 1972. Rudolf Khachatryan. Mariamik at the Window. 1972.