Princess 1904

Curator: Welcome. Today we will be exploring "Princess", an oil painting created in 1904 by the Armenian artist Martiros Sarian. Its expressionistic style feels steeped in symbolism. Editor: My first impression? It feels like peering into a dream… a slightly unsettling one. There’s this hazy, almost ghostly figure surrounded by… are those icicles or tears? Curator: I think you’re right to pick up on the unsettling feeling. Sarian painted this during a time of intense political upheaval and cultural re-evaluation, not only in Armenia, but across Europe. He's clearly drawing from the symbolist movement and all of its explorations of dark interior states. The drips, for me, evoke a sense of melancholic confinement. Editor: Confinement... yes, exactly. The way the "princess" is situated feels very much like a being trapped within a thorny, ethereal cage of her own making. Do you think he was commenting on the limited roles for women during that era? I wonder about the actual sitter. Did she have agency? Was this about her, or a representation of ideas through her? Curator: That’s an important consideration. Given the political and societal context of the time, where many female figures served as symbolic representations, and further, the limited agency granted to women as both subjects and participants of society, this portrayal can definitely be understood as reflective of prevailing social conditions. I’m particularly drawn to the idea of considering the limited avenues for women in cultural and political spheres. Editor: Absolutely, so what we see may well be a kind of beautiful imprisonment. A gilded cage kind of thing. I guess as an artist myself I’m interested in the texture of that, the paint seems quite thick and layered here, a real emotional weight literally being applied. And those stark whites… they pierce right through the gloom! It really catches the eye and the imagination, you can never tire of the ideas present within it! Curator: Absolutely, that interplay between light and shadow highlights those areas of struggle. It creates the central figure as an enigmatic force that is almost fighting to emerge from within its constraints. This speaks volumes about art's capacity to portray multifaceted issues, urging ongoing discourse on history, identity, and power dynamics within society. Editor: It does, doesn't it? Art keeps those dialogues fresh, even when we’re looking back over a century later. The power to keep ideas sparking – isn’t that what great art is about?