The Art of Khachatur Iskandaryan

Khachatur Iskandaryan – Honored Artist of Armenia… During his many years of creative life, he participated in numerous exhibitions and competitions, and honored with numerous awards.

Iskandaryan, who was born in 1923 in Yerevan, received his first professional education in Yerevan graduating from Industrial Art Technical College, and then in 1951 he  graduated from Fine Arts and Theatre Institute. Khachatur Iskandaryan drew the attention of the public in the mid-1950s, when in exhibitions began to appear his multi-figure  and single-figure small genre scenes as ” The Young Musicians ”,  ” The Field Kitchen”,  the portrait statues of artists  A. Kojoyan and R. Shishmanyan, sculptural illustrations of the fairytale  ” Nazar the Brave ”,  a series of dancers. This work differs by its  live observation of  life, its sincere attention to his contemporary,  its  warmth and sincerity, its tremulous emotional transmission  of  ”pictorial”  language of  plasticity .

Since 1958 H. Iskandaryan strongly captured by portrait sculpture. The portrait sculptures by Iskandaryan, various by its psychological contents, have sharp characteristics and integrity of the generalized plastic solutions.

The portraits of  intellectuals –  sculptor  S. Stepanyan,  actor A. Armenyan, surgeons I. Isahakian and H. Petrosian, Iskandaryan brings in a lot of  warm emotions that constantly attract the viewer.Very impressive the bust of  Mother Teresa with a wise and kind expression on her face (1989).

A separate group in the works of the sculptor are portrait statuettes. With love and skill the sculptor presented his contemporaries, friends and well-known artists (portrait statues of N. Nikogosian, G. Gyurjyan, B. Vartanian, A. Gharibyan, R. Shishmanyan, M. Saryan) finding for each portrait  a singular solution and demonstrating  highest level of professional skill, good taste and ability.

In the genre of everyday plastics, with Iskandaryan happens changes towards the search of  large sharpnesses and integrity of image, the fineness of  expression.  Multifigured sculptures of Khachatur Iskandaryan, contain elements of landscape, they characterized by free composite solutions, subtlety and mastery of execution [1, p.6].
These works attract by its emotion, and with all the depth of content. (” Discussion ”, ” Bicyclists ”, ”The assembly of the mice ”, ” The Rain ”, ” The Children in the kindergarten ”).

Iskandaryan created  interesting world of  images in a series ‘Memories of old Yerevan’. Among the sculptors he is the only one  who have dedicated of the old Yerevan numerous of works.  Executed with use of different techniques of plasticity, these works not only have a deep meaning and charm, but also encompass ethnographic information [2. p.9]. They attest to the great love of the master to the city of his youth. The best works in this series are ” Minutchik Alexan ”, ” The Seller of Flowers”, ” The Grinder of Knives and Scissors ”, ” Shaking Mulberry ”, ” The Seller of Water Zatik ”, ” Phaeton Yervand ”, ” The Newsstand ”, ” The Musicians ”.

Khachatur Iskandaryan – author of numerous monumental sculpture, installed in different cities and regions of Armenia. For example, the monuments of Armenian poet Avetik Isahakyan and composer Armen Tigranyan are in Gyumri, and bust of V. Ambartsumian – in Vardenis. In 1987, in the center of Yerevan was installed a granite monument to the founder of Armenian Typography Hakob Meghapart work by Khachatur Iskandaryan.

Iskandaryan worked in fine art, graphics as well. Here he was interested exceptionally in landscapes. His landcapes and urban landscapes are executed in oil, tempera, watercolor, ink, pastel and mixed techniques and represent nature of Armenia, Baltics, India, Japan and are done in free and bold style. Iskandaryan has reproduced the originality of these places.

From his clay works are worth to mention the ones done for Hovhannes Tumanyan’s “Gikor” story and  a series named “Old Uzbekistan”.

Sources:

1.Խաչատուր Իսկանդարյան: Քանդակ, գեղանկար, գրաֆիկա/ Կազմ. և առաջաբ. Ս. Փիլոսյան/, Երևան, 2010:
2.Խաչատուր Իսկանդարյան = Ցուցահանդեսի կատալոգ, Երևան, 1967: