EdikVardanyan: Painter of Blue and Yellow World
April 15 will mark the 75th anniversary of the Master
Life becomes easier, it becomes desirable and sweet, when there are many good people around, when creative and free mind prevails, when open, unfettered, sincere words are pronounced more often. All of this breathes life to us, pushes us to nobility, good deeds. Those who know painter, Honored Culture Worker, Dean of State Academy of Fine Arts of Armenia, Professor EdikVardanyan, will certainly have the following impression; one can feel his energy flowing to the outer world even without a word uttered by him, just by a glance, a little smile, warm handshaking. His painting artistry is the reflection of the very energy that he passes to the canvas; it’s another side of his human feature.
The artist’s mastery is to give life and feeling to colour and line. The image with the most academic literacy on paper is worthless unless it has breath. Edik Vardanyan’s colours, his wandering allegorical images come to life on the canvas, he opens the doors of their silence in such a way that the words become worthless․ There is no condition here, no need for explanation, the canvas is another continuation of life, sprinkled with the artist’s inner wealth. It just exists, lives…
Let’s review EdikVardanyan’s world of art. One doesn’t need much effort to feel that the artist before taking the brush to the pallet passes it through his inner feelings, dreams, and thoughts. His art is indeed emotional and at the same time it touches to the human heart and speaks to it.
70th anniversary of the painter was celebrated at Artists’ Union, in June with the opening of a magnificent exhibition in abundance of colors. The exhibition planned earlier in April was postponed by his wish; it was 2016. The 4-day war of April had just ended, taking lives of our young men. ”How can I open an exhibition when grief is in the houses of a neighbour, friend, compatriot”, he used to say then. Those days he didn’t allow himself to open even a modest exhibition.
It’s 5 years since then, now we face a new reality a more difficult, bitter and uncertain one. Six months ago our country suffered a heavy blow of war, already being devastated, exhausted by injustice. The loss was huge; a part of our homeland, thousands of young men, bright generation. Thousands of invalids and wounded longing for care, unknown fate of captives… We lost human lives and territories, we were humiliated, whereas Yerablur got lengthened, was enlarged. SAFAA also had losses. There were students who never returned taking the eternal path of heroes.
EdikVardanyan is one of those professors who teach the student the true value of life, the right choice. Neither academy nor a teacher can prepare an artist unless he expresses individuality in his perception of world, thought and imagination. With these seeds of creativity, a good school and teacher are just a gift for him. EdikVardanyan is such a teacher who gives the student a perception of pictorial thinking, who wouldn’t only depict what he sees, notices in nature or urban life, but would pass it through his inner laboratory. The richer and cognitive it is, the more the work gains.
His art is of such a kind; the color is applied on the canvas in such a way that it becomes a poem, musical sound; blue roofs of houses and yellowgrassland join the sky; his images float, soar, sometimes resembling the flying ghostly characters of Marc Chagall. The painter’s image often appears in the paintings in different situations as the bearer of an action. Flying objects of earthly origin, female bodies are not merely to leave an ethereal impression; one can think they are imaginary beings, detached from the painter’s self, but they are not for self-purpose and not a means of beatification. It seems to me the painter tries to complete through these means the land and sky, top and bottom, to passes to the audience the feeling of harmony of wholeness. I think this is the metaphysical element of his painting art; despite the bright and active colour range of the paintings, calmness and balance reign.
EdikVardanyan is tightly bonded to his land, his compatriots. He feels the spirit of his homeland very close, depicts the yearning of lost homeland left beyond Araksriver. The painter also saw this new disaster of our fatherland, his soul lived the pain ofdeprivation of homeland, the confusion and chaos among all Armenians and his colors of smile changed, got sadder, he felt bitterness for the situation.
Our congratulations and wishes to the 75th anniversary of the Master are the same colors as his paintings- light, transparent, intense, reviving to newly brush the calm blue sky and the gold of the wheat fields…
Melanya Badalyan
Translated by Naira Stepanyan
Photos and reproductions of photos by Mesrop Mesropyan
