Paravon Mirzoyan

Modern art life when imaginary intellectual ingenuity of postmodern-
ism is somewhat hidden under the darnels of fake painting and just
charlatanism, has rather annoyed. Day by day nostalgia for classic art
and for the plasticity of it becomes obvious. Exactly this kind of art can
be viewed in the works of Armenian painter Paravon Mirzoyan. In the
midst of the 1970’s when painting was yet a confessing and an aesthet-
ic action, Mirzoyan came forward implicitly obeying his youth ideals.
However, he did not and could not avoid tricks of mind and his relation
to the radical peculiarity of postmodernism.
Yet, the creative person develops by the general cultural state of
exactly his time and not the other one. But that relation sometimes
viewed in foreign art references and characteristic for postmodernism,
is hardly noticeable with slight exceptions. This merely makes the rem-
iniscences of a stranger as if encoded on genetic level but not brutal and
aggressive intertextual tricks of their culminating phase eliminating all
the obstacles. Mirzoyan’s art has nothing to do with this sense of post-
modernism.
It has merely a meaning of plasticity where the main aesthetic refer-
ence is the artistic trial of fauvism re-interpreted by the modern master.
But the background of the seemingly spontaneous creative impulse is
the great mastery and the strong school of the real professionalism. A
school, where many followers of so-called pictorial painting have stud-
ied in Yerevan, Moscow and Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) like Mir-
zoyan, and which still remains one of the main trends of Armenian
easel painting development. The basis of the artist’s skill and his free
brushstrokes make the intent study of visible reality.
Permanent model paintings, work in plain air and passionate sur-
veys-exactly these phenomena let him for decades freely reach to the
impressive generalization of created artistic images. During the de-
velopment of his whole creative activity not occasionally is that along-
side with oil paintings he has been perfectly mastering the technique
of pastel. The disciplined role of the latter is to specify the permissible
limits of pictorial licentiousness.
The development of Mirzoyan’s art is distinguished not by the
change of stylistic structures, forms and expressive means of painting
and different conceptions. It mainly stands out with deliberate colour
changings throughout the time.
As the rhythm and different tones of the same melody can change,
the palette innovations of the artist loyal to colours’ emotive signifi-
cance can only develop and deepen the perfect united meaning. Mir-
zoyan’s art is represented to us in all depicted works. The existential
world itself, which is composed on Mirzoyan’s canvases and cardboards
in new varieties, is actually unchangeable. Today they are green- and
violet-blue or light blue illusions of the beautiful and the mysterious.
At the time the artist perceived those illusion-dreams in another range
of colours. But then all the more as now they make the viewer think
about the existence, as well as about their unavailable and fascinating
mystery.
“Neither the landscapes allure me/, nor do the colours notice my
greedy eyes/. It is what shines in those colours,/ Love and joy for life”.
These words of the poet can truly characterize the artist.
Paravon Mirzoyan was born in one of the most beautiful corners
of Sisian region, Armenia. It’s a mountainous region with a mystic
nature. The feeling of the nature’s great vital force was branded into his
heart becoming a basis for his pantheistic world perception. Here are
the roots of life-asserting poetics of his canvases, whether they are still
lifes, landscapes, works of genre art, and subject compositions of female
figures or female nudes. The latter works make exactly the sequence of
various modes of femininity. The artist’s confessional attitude towards
the world has found its most visible reflection in them. Their variabil-
ity and essence can certainly be compared with eternal masterpieces of
Armenian medieval love lyrics-with Nahapet Kuchak’s hayrens:
“They are about love without any rules, love, which has only one
power-the power of heart” (L. Mkrtchyan).
The majority of Armenian painters always gave tribute to the ma-
jestic beauty of women and to their power of giving birth. A. Bazh-
beuk-Melikian was the most faithful painter to this mission and con-
sidered women to be the only and universal theme for creating, which
seemed glorious in painting. In this constant range (in addition to the
vast group of female images in world art) Mirzoyan’s artworks have
their specific place. In this respect, the most significant are the canvases
made in the genre “New”, where the emotive perception of a woman’s
nudity prevails, free from any detailed studies. The nudes depicted by
Mirzoyan are unknown with their plasticity, triumph and erotic at-
tractiveness; the majority of his paintings are unusually imaginary as
well. Nothing concrete, no individuality and which is more, there is
nothing from the inner world which could have been reflected in their
appearance. It is just a Woman, a generalized and an abstract image
including characteristic features. The artist is not interested in personal
peculiarities. He is quite indifferent towards the concrete model. This,
by the way, is distinctly viewed in his women portraits. They express
not the lyrical contemplation and poetic inner world of the model, but
exactly those of the artist himself. When the artist makes the main sub-
ject of his artworks sensual, which is strictly incomparable with publi-
city, then the nature of the depicted nudity itself lowers the accent, thus
moving the observation of the nude to another notional level.
The deliberate “blurriness” of extensive painting style, the condi-
tionality of plastic forms, outlines and omissions are the store of means
which make Mirzoyan’s improvisations diverse and which mentally
take us out of the reality. The reason is (as well as in landscapes, still lifes
and in paintings of genre art) that the most tender range of violet, tur-
quoise, blue-emerald, lilac, wine-red, ruby, dark blue and crimson-pur-
ple colours creates the imaginary space of the artist, which is out of time
and where there is nothing trivial and earthly.
Groups of diverse paintings related to female images of Paravon
Mirzoyan – the real interlocutor of midnight moon and stellar sky can
be characterized by poetic words of Ivan Bunin:

And I do not forget this starry night,
When I loved the whole world for the one!
Though I am living the useless dream,
Vague and deceptive dream,

I look for unity of beauty
And secret in this world as a dream.
Love her for the joy of confluence
Of one love with the love of all days.

Paravon Mirzoyan’s whole creative world seems to be inspired exactly
by this true feeling. This is the world of an artist, endowed with the per-
ception of the mysterious.

Paravon Mirzoyan
Dates of Life and Chronology
1949 - Born on December 2, in Salvard village (Sisian region, Armenia)
1975 - Graduated from the Leningrad State Academy of Fine Arts after I. Repin
1975 - Participations in republican, all-union and international exhibitions
1975 - Lecturer at Yerevan State Academy of Fine Arts
1976 - Member of Union of Artists of the USSR
1977-79 - Scholar of Union of Artists of the USSR
1986 - Awarded the medal “For Labour Virtue”
Since 1989 - Head of the art studio of Yerevan State Academy of Fine Arts
1989-2002 - Head of the Chair of Painting and Composition at Yerevan State Academy of Arts
1995 - Professor of the Chair of Painting and Composition (Russian Federation)
Since 2002 - Director of the National Gallery of Armenia
2005 - Decorated with the title “Honoured Citizen of Sisian”
2005 - Awarded the “Gold Medal” of the Ministry of Culture of RA
2005 - Awarded the medal “Aksel Bakunts” (Syunik Region)
2006 - Honoured Art Worker of the Republic of Armenia
2006 - Full member of the Petrov Academy of Fine Arts and Sciences (Saint Petersburg)
2007 - Awarded the State Reword of the Republic of Armenia
2008 - Awarded the order of “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres”
2009 - Awarded the gold medal “Fridtjof Nansen”
2014 - People’s Artist of the Republic of Armenia
Since 2014 - Head of the chair of Fine Arts at Yerevan State Pedagogical University after Khachatur Abovyan
2015 - Honorary Member of the Russian Academy of Arts
2015 - Awarded the medal “Grigor Narekatsi”

P. Mirzoyan’s works are preserved in the museums of Armenia, Russia,
the Ukraine, USA, France, India, Syria, Spain, Poland, Lithuania, as
well as in private collections.

Personal Exhibitions
1989 - Permanent Mission of Armenia in Moscow
1995 - Union of Artists of Armenia, Yerevan
2000 - National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan
2005 - National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan, Sisian and Etchmiadzin
2005 - Exhibition of pastel artworks, National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan
2007 - Exhibitions in Vanadzor and Gyumri
2010 - Union of Artists of Armenia, Yerevan and Stepanakert (Nagorno Karabakh)
2010 - Personal Exhibition in Stepanakert (NK), exhibition of “Artsakh” panel in the Liberty Square
2010 - Personal exhibition dedicated to the 300th anniversary of Armenian Community of Saint Petersburg, hall of Union of Artists of Saint Petersburg
2010 - Personal exhibition in Novi Sad city (Serbia)
2014 - Personal exhibition in the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia, Moscow
2014 - Personal exhibition at the National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan
2015 - Personal exhibition at the State Art Gallery of Sopot, Poland