Beautiful and Eminent Whimsicalities
BY MOVSES ZIRANI Whimsical characters are not only Picasso’s privilege. If the prehistoric plastic arts whimsicalities were of subconscious nature, or may even be of accidental nature, then the distortions found in the crete-mycenal or pharaonic (ancient Egypt) art were pictured consciously and were related to beliefs. Also, related to beliefs are the iconography of the Middle Ages and the whimsicalities of miniature art. However, these are limited and have kept their traditional sources. African popular art, too, has relations with beliefs and keeps its traditional sources. Nevertheless it goes on from there and whimsically reaches the extraordinary. Inspired by all these, Pablo Picasso first destroyed the traditional taboos of whimsicalness and then created such concepts and ways of expression. He not only brought new notions of art but also paved the way to a creative break in fine arts. It is true that he had many followers, but not all of them adopted the pinciples of Picasso’s style. For example, expressionists—such as James Ensor, Edvard 26 • Fine Art Magazine • December 2013
Gevorg Yeghyazarian, Duality, 97 x 116cm, oil on canvas, 2013
Munch, Ernst Kirchner and Egon Schiel– deformed the human body, especially the face, through free and forceful brush strokes in order to express human’s inner suffering and crises. Later on many of the representatives of the new generations began to picture whimsical characters more freely and sometimes even fanciful. However, very few of them could find and define their own creative path and be accepted by the international art-loving community as unique and established artist. Of those few is Gevorg Yeghyazarian. He was born in Gumri, Armenia, in 1963. He studied at Yerevan Fine Arts Institute. Then he was accepted at St. Petersburg Repin Academy of Arts. In 1994 he became a member of the “Union of Artists of Armenia.” In 1998 he joined the International Association of Arts. His artworks are exhibited in many cities – such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Paris, Geneva, Buenos Aires, Moscow, Amsterdam and Beirut. As a creative style Gevorg’s whimsical characters, spring from his inner drives and are
part of the artist’s very being. Thus, he is faithful to his being and, to analyse his creations in a proper way, he navigates through the crucial phases of his life. First we must consider the fact that he is a descendent of parents who are Genocide survivors and he also is a native of Gumri who has lived the horrors of the 1988 Armenia earthquake. Plus, Gevorg’s personality was formed during the fall of the Soviet Union, when Armenia was in war and was living a period of unstability and uncertainty. In spite of all these, this crisis-sticken and horrified young artist did not picture childeating monsters –like Francisco Goya– nor whimsical and bloodied body parts –like Francis Bacon. However, he reassembles and reharmonizes distorting human bodies with an artistic care and tenderness, thus constructing insightful and attractive art works. Having a spotless, good and very humane character, he instinctively and subconsciously is opposed to the evil and the ugly, always looking for and expressing the positive and the beautiful. But