Autumn still life 1961

Martiros Sarian painted this juicy "Autumn Still Life" with oil on canvas, and wow, what a feast for the eyes! Sarian’s mark-making feels so intuitive; he builds up the forms with these confident dabs of color. Look at the reds, yellows, and greens of the fruit – each one a little jewel. You can almost feel the weight and the give of their skins. What I love is how these marks don’t just describe the fruit, they create this vibrant, almost vibrating surface. It’s like he’s capturing the very essence of ripeness. The way Sarian handles paint reminds me of Matisse, that same joyous, uninhibited approach to color and form. But where Matisse might refine, Sarian embraces a kind of happy roughness. It’s a reminder that painting isn’t about perfection, it’s about feeling, about making something that pulses with life.