Back in Armenia (1929 -1945)

Fate had prepared an ordeal for the artist. However, Saryan mobilized all his will as it was typical for a creator of such a remarkable life-asserting art and returned to work. As A.Efros wrote, 'It was not enough for the artist to acquire the intensified skills. He had to harmonize them with what was going on around him and catch up with his country, not as a time-server but as a genuine and rigorous painter as he has always been'. (“About Saryan”, p.128).
At the time, Erevan was being constructed from mounds of disordered ruins. 'When the sound of hammers was all around, when a thought began to work and muscled arms got to work, everything changed. Yerevan started to be filled with light and verve' (“Martiros Saryan. From My Life”, p.125). At this period the urban scenes became the most favorite genre for Saryan. Laconism of the plot, oversimplified depiction of human figures in their characteristic motion - that was Saryan's style in those years. One after the other the following paintings appeared: ‘A Courtyard in Erevan in Springtime’, ‘Old Erevan’ (1928, the Tretyakov Gallery), ‘The Old and the Newest’ (1929, the Russian Museum), ‘The Zangou Banks in Erevan’, ‘Corner in Old Erevan ’, ‘Construction of a Bridge. Yerevan’ and others.
From 1928 -1929, Saryan displayed his paintings in various exhibitions in Yerevan and Moscow. Starting from 1930, the artist's paintings boldly expressing the advanced search of the modern art were regularly exhibited at the Soviet Art exhibitions in Europe (Stockholm, Vienna, Berlin, Venice, and Zurich).
In 1930, the Almast opera by A.Spendiarov, designed by Saryan, premiered in the Odessa Opera House. In 1932, Saryan designed the second act of the Golden Cockerel opera by N.Rimski-Korsakov staged in the Moscow Stanislavski Theater. In 1934, Saryan traveled to Turkmenistan and created a series of paintings in which one could obviously see the artist's previous attraction to oriental motives. At the same year Persian poet Firdausi's Rustam and Zohrab poem illustrated by Saryan and edited by the famous Armenian poet E.Charents was published.
However, the Stalin's policy of ideological suppression of cultural figures started to be gradually enforced in the early thirties. The Sovet State, as the only customer and buyer of art, demanded Socialist realism that meant simplicity (the ignorant officials associated the national character with primitivism) and illustration of political doctrines.
The decisions of 1932 confined the artist's freedom of creation. The so-called iron curtain policy impeded Saryan's contacts with the western culture and removed his creative work from the context of the world modern art. Saryan's works of art were severely criticized because of their decorativeness and extensive vividness of colors. The artist was called a formalist and was accused of flaw of idealistic world outlook.
Oftentimes, the artist 'held back' the colors of his paintings trying to 'paint simpler'. But his craftsmanship took over. ‘The Self-portrait with a Mask’ expresses his zeal to keep the beliefs of his creative work and the loyalty to the eternal and humanistic ideals of genuine art. When he was demanded to paint the portrait glorifying Stalin, Saryan replied that he couldn't paint from photo and used to portray from life. This was becoming a problem. Saryan didn't create a single portrait of Stalin.
In 1937 the period of harsh repressions began. Saryan's 12 portraits of the brightest literature and public figures subjected to repressions were burnt. Only one of them survived. The museum workers managed to hide the Charents' portrait (1923).
Meanwhile, in these years Saryan was ordered to create a huge panel. It should have represented a pavilion of the Soviet art exposition in Paris. The panel sized 46 sq.m won the Grand Prix.
In 1939, Saryan created another big panel for the Armenian pavilion of the agricultural exposition in Moscow. The demanded portrait of the country leader was not painted on this panel. The panel presented only a huge Armenian landscape. It was decided to place Stalin's full-length sculpture made by G.Kepinov in the foreground of Saryan's panel.
At this period Saryan painted very little. He mostly created sketches for theater designs and book illustrations.
The years of the WWII (1941-1945) seemed to have given some freedom for creativity. Saryan created a series of wonderful portraits of cultural figures. The fact that his youngest son was taken to the army testified the artist's civic stance. The future of Armenia was also under the threat. If the fascists had occupied Stalingrad the Turks would have rushed to Armenia and destroyed it.
The artist's thoughts and feelings of those years were expressed in the painting: ‘From the artist’s life. Portrait of Lusik Saryan’, as well as in his famous ‘Self-portrait. Three Stages of Life‘. These works were innovative in the portrait genre. By means of juxtaposing events from different epochs the artist reveals the inner life and emotional experience of his models. This method was typical for oriental painting. Thus, in the above portrait of Lusik a tangerine in her hands is reflected in the mirror as a long-awaited letter from their son who fought in the front. In the self-portrait we see Saryan as young, middle-aged and an old man in the foreground of Armenian landscape. The centuries-old history of Armenia juxtaposed to three periods of the artist's life. The history of human life is the change of generations. The change of generations is the history of the country.
Marking the victory and the return of his son, Saryan created his largest picture in the genre of still life "Flowers to Armenians who Fought in the Great Patriotic War" (1945, the National Gallery of Armenia).