| Ruskin said: 'Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts, the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of heir art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last.' On the whole I think this is true? ... If I had to say which was telling the truth about society, a speech by a Minister of Housing or the actual buildings put up in his time, I should believe the buildings" (Clark 1969:1). The field of Armenian art is quite young (for a brief history, see Der Manuelian 1988; Turner 1996:423-445). There are many monuments, churches, and Gospel illuminations yet to be analyzed for us to be able to give a definitive picture of Armenia's art. However, thanks to the work of a handful of dedicated scholars, such as Sirarpie Der Nersessian and others, we are able to gain a general picture of Armenian art and some insights on how Armenians interpreted and contextualized their faith. For many years, the accepted foundation of theology has been logic, reason, and conceptsas if life consists only of words. Scholars have ignored artistic expressions illustrating human interpretation of divine revelation. However, an increasing number of scholars of religion are becoming aware of the need to study not only the written texts but also the art or material culture, the better to understand a people's religion and theology. For the purposes of this paper, we assume (concurring with Ruskin's statements, above) that the study of art, especially when complemented by written documents, can yield a better picture of a people's religious outlook and their attempt at making the faith contextual. In spite of repeated invasions and foreign domination, the Armenian people have somehow acquired the ability to keep their identity and express a point of view within an ever-changing environment. Situated on a crossroads between East and West, Armenians from the most remote times have synthesized the changing outside world with the inner world handed to them through tradition. Albert Pensa has rightly characterized Armenian art as continuity and metamorphosis: "Continuity means respecting the preexisting forms and contents of reality? .. . Metamorphosis means the affirmation of concepts that go beyond the existing situation in their proposals for new events and new openings" (1986:274). One word that which may best characterize this complex process is contextualization (for a definition and overview of contextu-alization, see Haleblian 1983:96-97; Ukpong 1987:161-163). In what follows, I demonstrate how Armenians have contextualized their faith in the area of theology via their art. My subject matter is divided as follows: architecture, sculptured images, khach 'kars (stone crosses), iconography, and art miscellany. Architecture The land of Armenia has often been referred to as a Karastan, "Land of Rocks." But Armenia is more than a country of stones; it also is a symbol charged with meaning. Alpago Novello points out that "nature is valuable not merely as matter, but [also] as the fulfillment of an idea, a symbol" (1986a: 16). If we were to view the Land of Rocks as matter, and the faith of the Armenians as symbol, the combination of the two could well characterize Armenian architecture. In fact, a French art historian makes that exact point: "La pierre volcanique et la foi chretienne, qui ont con-fere a l'architecture d'Armenie ses caracteres propres" (Donabedian 1996:123). Perhaps this is why Armenians referred to a builder of a church as varpet (master), and not kartash (mason). As masters, church builders cease to be mere artisans and become engineers of a spiritual world. To best illustrate the spiritual relationship of the Armenian people with their environment, we begin our discussion with caves. From most remote times, Armenians have dug holes for dwellings as well as for worship places. On his journey through Armenia in 401 B.C., the Greek chronicler Xenophon described Armenian dwellings: The houses here were built underground; the entrances were like wells, but they broadened out lower down. There were tunnels dug in the ground for the animals, while the men went down by ladder. Inside the houses there were goats, sheep, cows, and poultry with their young. All these animals were fed on food that was kept inside the houses. (1972 [1949]: 199) Life in caves can be profoundly spiritual since it not only brings protection from elements and enemies but also provides a sacred contact with nature. Alpago Novello expresses it beautifully: "Man 'cavernates' and seeks a visceral-sacred type of contact with the land, which is by implication assigned to the role of a mother" (1986a: 16). The Armenians' disposition to cave dwelling may have had a positive association with the birthplace (manger) and burial ground (sepulchre) of Jesus Christ, whom they readily embraced. Illuminations in two manuscripts remind us of Zenophon's depiction. One is the nativity and the adoration of the shepherds scene from Matthew's Gospel, A.D. 1262 (Der Nersessian 1973:plate D). The other is the somewhat obscure nativity illumination from Mount Sinai, late-thirteenthfourteenth centuries (Mathews and Wieck 1998:75). Both artists have drawn the manger scene as though observed from the cave's mouth while looking down to the dark space below. The triple combination of manger, sepulchre, and khor virap (the cave where St. Gregory the Illuminator spent 13 years) may have been gripping symbols for many cave-dwelling Armenians. To be sure, Armenians continued to dig holes not only for dwellings but also for places of worship. There are many cave churches in Armenia: Geghard, Haghbat, and Spitakavor are surviving examples. The entire city of Ani was underground, and preliminary excavations have shown that the city at one time had "400 living accommodation units, 30 churches, numerous architectural complexes, and chapels,... eight groups of tombs and 16 dovecotes" (Zarian 1984:11). By 1915, some 500 rock environments had been excavated before exploration of Ani stopped, for political reasons (cf. Cowe 2001). The spirit of excavated or cave architecture is somewhat reflected in Armenian church design and form. The structure's interior is strikingly small, dark, and cavelike. Light is considered the enemy of penitence; hence, early Armenian churches had either no window or a few small windows. According to Khatchatrian, "After the seventh century, windows had become contracted. In the tenth century, they were simple slits in the wall, widening out towards the interior of the church" (1972:69). The trembling candlelights mingled with the dazzling light of the sun penetrating through the narrow windows. All this generated an environment ideal for prayer and separation from the world of sin and suffering. As Volp has shown, "Space is a 'text' with many levels of meaning, which nonetheless are readily legible and decipherable by everyone" (1994:171). In the minds of the faithful, this cavelike space had various degrees of sanctity. The door was the point of demarcation between the two worlds. Yet as one moved toward the apse, one progressed from the secular to the sacred. John of Odzun (c. 650-728), for example, divided the interior of the church into three parts: khoran (sanctuary), tachar (nave), and gavit (narthex), prefiguring Noah's ark with its three decks (Thomson 1979:110). Similarly, the exterior of the church is austere and massive, giving the building the impression of another slope in the mountainous and rocky environment. Almost all Armenian churches are constructed with tuff stone yellow, red, rose, or grayblending so well with the environment that they are difficult to spot from afar. The underlying theme of Armenian church architecture seems to be concealment and protection rather than attracting attention.
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