An Armenia At The Metropolitan Museum Of Art

A large banner titled Armenia! currently hanging on the entrance wall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art would be hard to miss if you’re in New York these couple of months. With the launch of its fall exhibition season, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens its doors to a first major exhibition in the United States that explores the “remarkable artistic and cultural achievements of the Armenian people in a global context”. Curated by Dr. Helen Evans, the Mary and Michael Jaharis Curator for Byzantine Art at the MET, the exhibition focuses on the Armenian Medieval Ages, starting from the 4th century, when Armenians converted to Christianity, till the 17th century when printed Armenian books arrived in Armenia. Through some 140 objects, including gilded reliquaries, manuscripts, textiles, cross stones (khachkars), liturgical furnishings, church models, and printed books, the exhibition brings together an impressive collection of artefacts, most of which are on view in the United States for the first time, while some have not travelled abroad for centuries. The exhibition is, at large, a celebration of the richness and diversity of Medieval Armenia at the intersection of art, religion and trade. It includes works by Toros Roslin, Sargis Pidzak, Toros Taronatsi, and Hakob of Julfa.

Armenia has long been overlooked in the history of Christian art. For the curator of the exhibition, as well as the President and CEO of the MET Dan Weiss, Armenia! is an attempt to rectify that and to recognize Armenian medieval art as a component of Christian Art, by situating it within a larger global context. The variety of the artifacts at display reflect a rich cross-pollination between different cultures, a result of Armenia’s longstanding engagement with, and service to, regional and imperial powers, as well the development of prominent Armenian trade routes in the region. A pair of 11th-century gold earrings found in the one-time Armenian trade hub Dvin depicts birds, crescents and seated cross-legged figures commonly found in Islamic art. In a page from the Compendium of Chronicles (Jami' al-tawarikh), considered the first world history produced in the Mongol Ilkhanate in Persia, the use of Chrism (Myron) and Armenian style monastic dress reflects the significance of Armenian painting in the development of Islamic figurative imagery at the time. Sideways oriented manuscript illuminations closely resembling the design of contemporary manuscripts from Syriac Christian and Manichaean communities, attest to a shared regional practice among different religious communities across the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia.

The features of Medieval Armenian art also reflect the migration of Armenians across regions and cities from the Kingdom of Cilicia on the Mediterranean to New Julfa in Safavid Persia, both under force and through choice, often echoing commercial networks. For instance, manuscripts supported by wealthy Armenians in Constantinople, borrow motifs from Western printed images brought to Constantinople by its merchant elite. Similarly, ceramic production in Kutahya include patterns based on objects encountered through trade activities, including motifs from Chinese porcelain and Indian printed cottons. In metalwork, Kayseri’s location on major trade routes provided access to western materials. Censers in the Ottoman gothic style produced in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is a hybrid style, mixing ottoman arabesque with western European decoration reminiscent of late gothic art. In Safavid Persia, as Armenians gained control of external trade, from England to the Philippines and Russia and India, their palaces and churches, as well as residential sections in Isfahan combined traditional Armenian motifs with Western and other sources drawn from their trade routes.

With most of the works coming from major religious institutions (including the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin; the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia in Lebanon; the Brotherhood of St. James in Jerusalem; the Mekhitarist Congregation of San Lazzaro degli Armeni in Venice; the Diocese of the Armenian Church (Eastern) in New York), it is hard to find secular objects that made their way to the show. Perhaps, by attempting to rectify the absence of Medieval Armenian Art in Christian Art, too much space has been devoted to religious artifacts, leaving secular works out of the scope of the show. While it is true that the modes of production in the middle ages were controlled by the Church, and that Christian Armenian art, cherished in patriarchal treasuries, monastic libraries and churches were preserved in greater care and attention, the absence of Armenian secular or popular artistic tradition is disquieting. It is particularly so as the cultural identity of the Armenian people is solely framed by the lens of religion. Perhaps, pages from Ahkharhatsuyts of Anania Shirakatsi, the 7th century Armenian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer, or examples of Armenian carpets, countlessly mentioned in Medieval accounts of Ahmad ibn Rustah, Yya’qubi and Ibn Hawqal, could have rendered an even more diverse Armenia!Perhaps, it would be equally important to understand ‘Armenia’ in social and cultural terms, defining regions and settlements where those who identified as Armenian lived, rather than in religious, political and territorial terms. Despite the persistence of traditions that seek to present it as singular, being Armenian in the pre-and postmodern era holds a multiplicity of meanings.

Though extremely rich in the collection it offers, what one misses by seeing Armenia! is the broader cultural and artistic achievements of the Armenian people outside of Christianity. While the title seems to suggest and draw excitement over Armenia at large, a country long forgotten in the West, the exhibition, in fact, is a showcase of one facet of it. But Armenia! is not alone. A quick google search reveals Russia! “the most comprehensive and significant exhibition of Russian art outside Russia since the end of the Cold War”, at the Guggenheim in 2005, and India! “an exhibition of the art of India from the fourteenth through the nineteenth century”, at the MET in 1985. It seems like the name of a country followed by an exclamation point is a mandatory introductory course to these “forgotten” places, one that would pave the way for many more to come.