Varuzhan Vardanyan was the artist of a movie with the late Minas. The basement hall, where their sketches and sketches were shown for the staging group, was filled with the play of warm colors, the beauty of the real and unreal world, and light for a couple of days. The hands of Minas, a homesteading peasant and a restless artist, who worked everywhere and at every moment, of course, did not leave any of their work to others, but the entire "paint" of the hall - the worn chapels, the pediments, the tired soil, the rock eaten by time, the bushes flaming red in late autumn - all of them were Varuzhanin's. a young, almost teenage artist, seems to have made an effort to be liked by the master and all the "directors", just as their pair of artists then tried to communicate their understanding of the beautiful and the national, first in their right as artists, then by the independent existence of themselves and their art, a kind of sideline, to the work in which they were involved.
Of course, we are all girls and we all want to be liked by everyone, but it was not only Varuzhan's effort, but first of all, it was the characteristic and ability to relate to beauty. Even if he were to paint on the sands of the sea, if he were to paint with only his index finger and only for himself, he would still make an effort to paint beautifully and be liked by... who?
He is an artist by nature, he radiates artistry from his heart and soul, and of course he has in his mind halls full of spectators, in the halls there are masters of speech and brush of the past, present, and tomorrow, that's whose approval Varuzhan seeks.
He himself knows their value, they are always there for him, those "genius servants" of words, brush and britches. his excellent note about his senior colleague "Join me in my view", a couple of published articles and a poem, his verbal description of this or that artist, where every word and phrase is accurately almost materialized, his excellent knowledge of world culture and the ability to navigate independently in that sea of shores are the evidence that Varuzhan with a brush in his hand must be in constant account before the great culture of the present and the past. Of course, this is a peculiar test of faith, and it implies a difficult situation for every artist, but it is not possible in any other way, especially if you came to art with the ambition to stamp your handprint on the marble of a great culture.
In our open, cruel and fair times, when your Armenian artist's book is pushed aside in front of your Armenian reader by a certain artist of another continent and language and puts his own work in its place, it is not worth picking up a pen or a brush or a brush without great ambitions. The other name of this condition of creating in front of everyone, for everyone, the requirement to never lose the standard of great art, is honor, honor to one's own work, which is unfortunately a rare commodity among us today. Such figures of our culture and other marzes, who could have earned respect at least with their hard work, come to the public with "unbelieving", unreliable, unworked cases. Genius is not given to everyone, but neither is it given to everyone to separate the genius from the well-done work of a good craftsman.
Varuzhan's canvases are worked, sometimes even excessively, sometimes even tortured, but in both cases, when the breath of life plays on the surface of the canvas and when it has not vibrated, or remained in the folds of many layers, they are, if not necessarily beloved, then also not something to be admired - on all of them, a person well aware of the nature of things and people, restless, dissatisfied with himself suffered, "magiced", hoped, to invest all his stock of knowledge and instinct in order to call life from lifelessness, at least it seems that the effort of nature on those things and people, and the effort of the artist in re-creation and the effort of re-creation are equivalent.
In our time, when, on the one hand, it seems that among thousands of artists in the world you have not only your versions, but also exact replicas, and they are doing what you do now, and, on the other hand, when the human thirst for the beautiful is satisfied by countless and endless transformations, in these times of depolarization of the artist and depolarization of popular attention from the painting itself, it seems that it was not worth to "give a face" to classicism in you, the great and "difficult" to be in constant reporting in front of him, to believe and toil so much, like the great believers of ancient times, but in that case, Varuzhan would simply be unbelieving in front of the temple of art, when it is diametrically opposite. in his paintings, there is a sure conviction that peoples are not marked, but live by their arts, that the continuous upward movement of man is an eternal march towards true beauty, which is embodied primarily by painting and perhaps only by painting. And so it is worthwhile for painting to feel the seriousness and responsibility of its mission under each brush.
And so. There was no painter named Varuzhan Vardanyan, now there is. There were no such canvases, now there are, slowly but persistently unfolding like cold bending and confirming their place in our being.
Very often, when I feel powerless in front of the problems of history, life and future, and despair arrests me, in those difficult hours, here I am supported by the elders of culture, Tumanyan and others, who embody the ultimate perfection of beauty. Saryan, the Master, is among those great ones. one visit to his museum, one leafing through his vintage albums or sheet music gives a charge of warmth, faith and knowledge that doesn't leave you for weeks. I am sure that at least one of the days of my life and yours is reserved for the painter Varuzhan Vardanyan, the Varuzhan who has already come true, the present Varuzhan and the future Varuzhan.
14.03.1986