Today this means of combining observation with idealization has resulted in the agonized expression of the individual as an existential testimony, as a contemporary anguish.  To maintain a sense of balance, therefore, in this agonizing labyrinth of existential doubt, I wish to return to an archaism whereby observation, virtue and ideal-hope will be combined.  This archaism of thought is the beginning of language.

I studied early Christian manuscripts with miniatures.  I looked at archaic sculpture or reliefs.  I focused my attention on and studied this short-lived but significant tradition of Armenian art, unknown to me up to now which, in my existential labyrinth, I had not had the chance to get to know.  Neglecting the naked anguish of daily reality as a priority, I tried to see the continuity and application of Armenian art in today’s reality through its theological, morphological and primarily its humanistic aspect.  I have the impression that archasim and idealism are one, which realism tried to betray and to make it forgotten.  I have heard intepretations of the icons of saints and martyrs that are mistakenly considered to be caricatures simply because they are not realistically drawn, as for example, during the Renaissance.

I have doubts regarding these certainties and about naturalism.  The archaism of observation today has given place to information and fixed ideas.  Perhaps through doubt the fixed idea can return to observation and thought, which is meditation.

What is the difference between the fixed idea and opinion?  Does doubt in some way remove the fixation from the idea so that we can then have a dream-like idealization?  Without the morphological desire of language and its origin there can be no humansitic content.  Finally, by looking at and copying the Assyrian, Greek and Byzantine archaisms of Armenian art, I think that I attempted to transfer the ancestral past to the present.

Notes from a Journal

I don’t think I have changed.  On the contrary, I continue to penetrate even more deeply into the representation of man.

The continuation of the yellow color with gold.

Modernism might misunderstand this penetration as a change and rupture, as a lack of continuity.  And as a consequence the past and the culture of a nation or the personal past of an artist are rendered worthless and seen as antiquated and foreign.  I have lived through these experiences of alienation and confusion regarding the past and tradition.  They are aspects of my personal and collective identity.

I do not believe in a global art, but rather, in the globalization of individual and therefore national, idiosyncrasies, which determine the individual.

I am glad that E. Hopper’s work is recognizable as American, O. Dix’s as German, Bonnard’s as French, Tsarouchis’ as Greek.  I am glad about Picasso and de Chiricio – that one is strongly Spanish and French at the same time and the other strongly Italian but with a Greek memory.

I am interested in the morphological idiosyncrasy of Armenian art aside from the thematic peculiarities of Mt. Ararat, the Hatchkar and the Genocide.

I did not want to concentrate on the dramatic aspect of Armenian history but rather, to focus on the positive elements of love that we can find in Armenian culture, even if we are not Christians.

These humanistic values, even beyond religion, are for me the essence of quality.

                                                                                                                                                      E. Sacaillan