Lori 1925

Martiros Sarian made this drawing, Lori, with what looks like graphite on paper. It's a landscape, but the marks are so energetic, like he's trying to catch the feeling of the place rather than just copy what he sees. I love the way he uses these short, choppy lines to build up the mountains and rocks. It's almost like he's sculpting the land with his pencil. There's this one spot, near the bottom, where he's drawn a few dark, blocky shapes. They could be rocks, but they also read like these solid, grounding elements. The texture of the paper shows through in places, which gives the whole thing a kind of raw, unfinished quality. It makes me think about the physical act of drawing, the way the pencil moves across the surface. Sarian reminds me a bit of Cezanne, both of them trying to get at something essential about the world through their art. Sarian isn’t trying to give us a perfect picture, but an invitation to think about the world in new ways.