Armenian village 1929

This drawing of an Armenian village was made by Martiros Sarian. The hatching lines create forms that feel solid, while also making space for light. Looking at the foreground, the cross-hatching on the haystacks is really dense, which gives them a feeling of weight. Then, if you follow that up to the mountains in the background, the linework is much more sparse, giving them a lighter feel. It's like the air gets thinner as the landscape rises. This piece is so reliant on the materiality of mark-making; the stark contrast of the dark ink against the white surface feels so immediate. It reminds me a bit of the drawings of Philip Guston, but with a more traditional sensibility. You could almost imagine Sarian sitting in the village square, rapidly filling the page with his observations. What do you see in the buildings and natural landscape? Hopefully the artist has given you the space to interpret it in your own way.