Mountains 1934

Martiros Sarian made this small ink drawing, called 'Mountains', sometime in the 20th century, and it's a real beauty. Look at how the landscape emerges from a series of hatched marks, like the pen hardly touched the paper. It’s all process, a series of decisions, erasures, over and over. What strikes me most is the raw, almost scribbled quality of the lines. They’re not trying to trick you into thinking this is a real place. No, it’s more like Sarian is showing us the very act of seeing, of trying to capture something vast and complex with just a few strokes. And then, down in the bottom corner, those little figures: the horse, the deer. They're rendered with the same energetic marks, but they feel so full of life! It's the way he combines the epic and the intimate that gets me. I’m reminded of Cézanne, who also wrestled with mountains and mark-making. But where Cézanne uses color and planes, Sarian goes straight for the jugular with pure, unadulterated line. It's a reminder that art isn't about answers, it’s about the questions we ask along the way.