THE DEMISE OF A CULTURAL ICON
EDITORIAL | MARCH 14, 2013 12:26 PM
When an artist attains a ripe age and continues to create and to
surprise his fans, people forget their mortality for a moment and
begin to believe that the artist in question is there forever, he
or she is the journeyman of the eternal, of course, until he or she
faces the inevitable.
I had that feeling when I heard Picasso passed away. I thought eternity
had collapsed and destroyed the traveler of that unending journey.
I experienced the very same feeling upon hearing about the loss of
painter Hakob Hakobian (Hagopian), who at the threshold of 90, was
still surprising his fans with new and refreshing phases of his art. I
was also overcome with intense emotions as he was very much a part
of my life. While still in Egypt, he had shared many collective art
shows with my wife, Nora, and we had come to treasure his friendship,
his art, his wisdom and his inexorable quest regarding the destiny
of the Armenian people and Armenia.
I will never forget one evening in 1962, his grueling questions on
life in Armenia, as I had just returned from Yerevan, after my first
trip there, with mixed feelings. We were walking for miles along
Cairo streets and I was trying to convey my reservations about the
limitations of artistic freedom behind the Iron Curtain, trying to
tread on a fine line, mindful of my principles of supporting Armenia
under any condition.
Hakobian was already an upcoming artist with a solid reputation and
his wife, Marie, was the foremost dress designer in Egypt. They both
had opportunities to settle in Europe or North America.
As we parted late that night, I was convinced that he had understood
my subtle message that Armenia was not yet for him.
Little did I know that soon he was moving his family to Armenia.
“After all, it is our homeland,” he said, “no individual, no matter
how talented, can be greater than his nation. We are destined to
share the fate of our homeland.”
Hakobian, an unassuming person and the personification of humility,
never expected rewards and glory as he settled in Armenia, first
in the city of Gumri (Leninakan), where he was inspired to create
immortal landscapes. Later, he moved to the capital Yerevan.
Hakobian’s art radiates a universal sadness. He was a meditative artist
and he was first misunderstood in Armenia. One of his early paintings
featured a poor neighborhood in Gumri, where chickens were roaming
free and colorful laundry was hanging to dry. The critics in Armenia
jumped on him as a result, to force on the artist the straightjacket
of “socialist realism,” interpreting that the artist was sad and
despondent under capitalist rule, and now that he had arrived at the
“socialist paradise,” he opted for brighter colors and an optimistic
outlook on life.
Hakobian remained true to himself and continued his trademark
philosophical concept of art and, indeed, he achieved fame and
recognition. In 1986, he was awarded the coveted prize of the Artist
of the Soviet Union and in 1988, he was invited to join the USSR
Academy of Fine Arts. Later on, he was twice awarded the prize of
Artist of the Republic of Armenia. Although he was fond of subdued
colors, Hakobian became the rainbow bridging the diaspora to Armenia.
He was among the constellation of Egyptian-Armenian artists who
repatriated to Armenia, at great personal risk, to contribute to the
development of artistic life in Armenia. The other members of that
group were world-renowned coloratura Gohar Gasprarian, opera singers
Mihran Yergat, Armineh Tutunjian and Anna Nishanian, artist Arakel
Badrik, intellectuals Hagop Aramian, Hagop Triantz, Garnik Stepanian
and others.
Hakobian had a characteristic style with a penchant for economy
of colors. His monochromatic landscapes hide so many hues that the
painting begins to “speak.” Dead tree trunks emerge from nowhere like
skeletons to tell the stories of the centuries.
Hakobian has always reminded me of the French expressionist painter
Bernard Buffet, without the latter’s bitterness and sarcasm. Clearly
cynicism and sarcasm in Buffet ran deep, eventually causing him to
commit suicide in 1999. On the contrary, Hakobian’s pessimism has
a submissive fatalism, accepting the realities of life as they are,
as desolate as they may be.
The material Hakobian’s soul was made of was derived from the historic
land of Armenia, yet somewhere in the philosophical eternity, his
soul meets that of Georgia O’Keefe, because both are the masters of
extracting so much emotion, so much brooding out of isolated desert
landscapes.
Hakobian’s art has relentlessly undergone development; he always has
been on the threshold of a new vision, a daring jump into unexplored
vistas.
His early depictions of ordinary people gradually gave way to his
experiment with tailors’ dummies, which were humanized to express love,
sadness, dancing, remembering, etc. His paintings also depicted simple
instruments, ordinary objects with powerful messages. His fragile eggs
against the threatening teeth of pliers depict the frail feature of
human lives versus iron logic of destiny. His headless crowds feature
another message about horrors of the nuclear age.
Hakobian was a gentle person and an even gentler artist, yet he
could tear your heart apart with his symbolism on Armenian history;
his painting depicting a herd of sheep, heads against a wall in the
summer heat, while one slaughtered sheep hangs on a pole. The herd is
“sheepishly” resigned to its destiny.
The last stage of Hakobian’s art was to move from the canvas to
metals to animate simple instruments. After painting instruments with
loud human messages, he actually resorted to working with the metals
themselves, which he collected form junkyards and turned into tiny
sculptures, each one with an artistic expression. He then would cast
those molds into large and impressive sculptures. The last time I
visited his studio, he had already 300 tiny sculptures. It is ironic
that he was planning his first large-scale sculpture exhibition for
March 19 in Yerevan.
He was not only an artist, but an articulate writer. He published many
essays which appeared in a voluminous book in 2006. They feature his
observations, sharp criticism and questions about Armenian history,
as well as artistic life in Armenia and in the diaspora. He would
lash out against ugly developments of Armenian life with a sharpness
no one would else would dare to express.
He was tormented about the destiny of the Armenian people. “What
happened to us, where are our traditional values?” he would ask almost
in tears. He would satirize, sometimes the political immaturity
of our leaders and everyone accepted his comments with reverence,
knowing they came from inner torment and introspection, rather than
personal motives.
The economic conditions in Armenia bothered him tremendously. “My
paintings are selling well and I have a comfortable life. But I
am embarrassed to go into the street and look into the eyes of the
ordinary people who are miserable in rampant poverty.”
During my last visit, he showed a large painting depicting a forest
of Armenian skulls, his grandparents included. Right in the middle
of the painting is Ataturk’s notorious racist motto: “Happy is the
person who claims to be a Turk,” in Turkish.
“I would like to donate this painting to a museum,” he said. “This
is my message to my people and this is my message to humankind. Let
everybody know that this is the only contribution of Turks to human
civilization.”
Last November, as I took my leave from his studio, Hakobian,
accompanied by his wife, walked me to the door, saying, “Don’t
forget to visit us the next time you are in Armenia.” I replied,
“How could I forget since every visit to you is a pilgrimage for me,
when I get to enjoy intellectual discourse and artistic novelty?”
I did not know that this was to be my last pilgrimage to Hakobian.
The artist was a man of dignity and humility. He was extremely modest.
He never clamored for fame and celebrity status. Yet, his humility
propelled him to the peak of fame. The Armenian government has decided
to bury Hakobian’s remains in the National Pantheon. He will be in good
company, with Aram Khachatourian, Martiros Saryan, Minas Avetisian,
William Saroyan Paruyr Sevak, Silva Kapoutikian and the other creative
minds of the Armenia nation. May his tormented soul rest in peace.
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