Strokes to the Portrait
(author Karen Voskanyan)
"From the abyss of suffering, he draws this limitless ability to create!"
(M. Proust)
In a small picturesque Maikop lives and creates his impressive imagination linen big man, Honored Artist of Russia, Alexander Grachevich Manakyan.
On a warm autumn morning, your humble servant was lucky to contemplate the creative process of the outstanding master. It should be emphasized that despite his advanced age (81 year!), Alexander Grachevich in excellent fighting shape - do exercises every morning, no worse than Jackie Chan, because the artist is also needed strong hands to work.
I his stupid questions like: "Oh!" And how are you doing? " or "Can I try too?" unable to interrupt the flight buoyed by the inspiration of thought, knocked creative boldness, but only caused a condescending smile. After a seemingly easy work (writing pictures) actually requires years of practice, comprehensive education and dedication, or instead of Leonardo da Vinci get Nikas Safronov, for example ...
So, all seen and heard over a glass of tea on a visit of the Armenian Alexander Manakyana I lay out below, with great joy and pride for the good reputation of our ancient and great nation.
Parents Alexander Grachevicha emigrated from Western Armenia in Maikop in 1915, during the Turkish genocide of Armenians.
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During the Great Patriotic War, large family Manakyan paranoid Soviet authorities referred to East Kazakhstan, having considered unreliable and called the "potential spies. Childhood Sashko and younger brother Tico (Tigran) sank rapidly, without having imprinted in the memory range of bright moments. Perhaps that's why looking unfairly selected childhood Manakyan both brothers became artists and conceptually independent of each other immortalized on canvas their colorful impressions of places, events, thoughts, feelings and people.
In the quest for self-Alexander Grachevich entered the Yerevan Art College named Terlemezian, where he studied at one time with such famous painters as Minas Avetisyan, Rafael Atoyan, Ashot Melkonyan, Martyn Petrosyan ... The fate of the children scattered all over the world, but the bright memory of "the brotherhood brushes and paints "is alive today in the U.S., Europe, Armenia and Russia.
The original technique of painting Sashko Manakyana formed through painstaking work in the studio Mukuch Kamalian. There, he studied at the same masterful own brushes and palette knife, to write the classic oil paintings in addition to more and tempera, watercolor, gouache ...
Junior Sashko Manakyan during study found not only the knowledge and friends, but also their homeland - Armenia: with its mountains and forests, rivers and churches, people with sadness in the dark eyes, with Heaven and Earth, whose relatives only mother and father . It was they who told him about Armenia in the sad songs and sad memories ...
Manakyan back in Maikop, but every fall he visited Sevan Masis, Ararat Yerevan and Gyumri, Goris, and Yerevan, where he found inspiration and material for landscapes, still lifes and portraits, wrote in Maikop workshop.
But Adygea not had any serious tradition in the professional visual arts. The postwar generation of artists, representatives of the Russian Soviet school worked conformist traditions of that time and, unfortunately, pronounced Armenian style painting by A. Manakyana not use, to put it mildly, of particular interest not only in Adygea, but also in the cultural zone "Soviet South.
Our hero did not adopted the principles of the gala production of thematic order Soviet era, has rejected all the canons and dogmas of the universally recognized authority, never tired to defend his vision of life and work, swimming against the tide, because Johann von Goethe "To be a man - it means to be a fighter!" . Time has justified maximalism artist, people have appreciated his point of view: Alexander Grachevich became the winner of the state scholarships.
Like the great Armenian seascape painter Ivan (Hovhannes) Aivazovsky Alexander Manakyan achieves harmony in the transmission of images through a struggle of cold and warm tones and shades, are often not visible eyes inhabitants.
Working in the tradition of European and Armenian art does not interfere Manakyanu be free from established patterns and stereotypes. Every once in their exhibits, he boldly breaks the expectations of visitors with fresh solutions staging perspective, the plot and light shade. Thus, his characters are almost devoid of external action, but filled with the internal dynamics that in the era of brick-busting action and comic books is very unpredictable.
His "Ararat" (1980) is not just a mountain, but a living relic, with which you can talk and consult. A "View of Ararat" (1988) did not specifically written in the late autumn, and the Indian summer, to show the cyclical nature of life and hope for the revival of Armenia.
Combining monolithic and expression ( "Street in Byurrokane" (1984)), with raznosezonnoy series "The Yard" (1977), paintings by masters of dynamics is not inferior to cinema and to fully exist in four of reality that allows us to visually experience the such abstractions as time.
By my conservative estimate, in private collections and museums in Russia and abroad have accumulated more than two hundred Copyright masterpieces A. Manakyana. The artist also remembers about three hundred loving and beloved women, the Muses, if you want - an inexhaustible source of inspiration and the secret to eternal youth ... The beautiful half of humanity in him values the unique ability to perpetuate on canvas, beauty and without kitsch and vulgarity, and even vice versa, with full disclosure of those inspired features that photographic equipment can not do.
Home pride Grachevicha Alexander - the son of David, also an artist, but seeking their own way, independently from the style of his father and uncle Tigran.
The main thing that unites the artistic dynasty Manakyan, it is hard work and patience, so characteristic for the Armenian people as a whole. After all, before writing a picture, such an interesting job, need a week of routine work - priming the canvas. This is a long fabric stores and allows you to apply precise strokes, since the primer smooths the relief material. Not every artist has given so much time and energy to the primer, my friends!
Alexander Grachevichu officials did not give room to privatize the dilapidated shop, not put it on par with the natives, because his rebellious spirit of a free artist does not fit in a gray semi-official part of Adygea, however, his paintings are recognized by people of different nations and religions, because true art is always ABOVE chauvinism and OUT archetype "Own - Stranger" to unite different people and to their common road of love and education.