Rural landscape 1962

Martiros Sarian created this rural landscape with graphite. The composition is arranged to focus on a clustered village atop a hill. The drawing uses line and hatching to suggest volume and texture. Sarian’s technique, reminiscent of Cubist fragmentation, breaks down the scene into essential forms. Trees are rendered as dense, spherical masses, while buildings emerge as simple geometric shapes. The artist's reduction of the landscape into simplified elements points to a deeper engagement with structuralist principles, which seek to uncover the fundamental systems underlying visual expression. By using a semiotic approach, the image can be seen as a system of signs rather than just a landscape. The lines, forms, and their arrangement become signs that evoke ideas about place and belonging. This interpretation challenges conventional landscape art by emphasizing the structural components and how they generate meaning beyond mere representation.