The Art of Book Illustration and Miniatures

Vaspourakan^*

"Vaspourakan, one of the fifteen provinces of historical Armenia, has been of major consequence in the cultural and political history of the Armenian people".^* Below is a brief account of important historical milestones that can be considered to have changed the cultural and religious atmosphere of Vaspourakan, creating the avenue for the discovery of excellence in book illustration and miniature art.  Until today, we have many original works dating back centuries that were created by the artists of the Vaspourakan area.  Read about each individual artist here.  The Album is coming soon.

The Start of Vaspourakan Miniature Art, Book Illustration, & Scripture

The first specimens of Vaspourakan miniature for the period under consideration come from the end of the thirteenth and the start of the fourteenth centuries, while the latest creations date to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  To be

Artist Minas, The Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi, Prayer-book, 1450, Artskeh, MS 982, 4b, size 31.5 x 21.5

noted for their originality are the specimens of the thirteenth-fifteenth centuries, which will form the bulk of the album presented on this website.

It was the scriptural centers of Kajberounik and Arberan that communicated a fresh upgrowth to Vaspourakan miniature.  Notable were the creative endeavors of the famed scribe and illuminator Simeon who lived in the second half of the thirteenth century in the town of Ardjesh.  His practices were significant in forming the miniature style of Vaspourakan.  It was again in this province that the illuminator Minas , an eminent figure of the fifteenth century, embarked on his prolific activities.  Scriptoria flourished also in the neighboring towns of Artskeh, Akhbak, Berdak, and Berkri.

The Influence of Akhtamar

Akhtamar was of cardinal importance in the history of Vaspourakan both as a religious and political center.  The miniaturists of Akhtamar – Zakaria, Karapet, Mourat, Hovsep, and Grigor – lively responded to contemporary artistic problems.  The works of the miniaturists of Vostan are notable for their loyalty to old local artistic traditions.  Eminent representatives of this school, who embody the characteristic traits of the Vaspourakan style of miniatures, are the artists Tseroun, Astvatsatour, Touma Izid and others.

For five centuries, Khizan also featured as another major center of miniature.  Its best skilled artists, Restakes, Hovhannes, Martiros, Khachatour, excelled in their peculiar synthesis of traditional and new elements that lent their productions freshness and artistic charm.

We come across other gifted miniaturists (Kirakos, Hovsian, Meliksedek, Grigor Khlatetsi, Astvatsatour, Zakaria Vanetsi, Sahak, Karapet Berkretsi, Vartan, Sarkis Mazma, Zakaria Avantsi ) also in Van, Baghesh, Varag, Khelat, and some other centers of Vaspourakan.

It is to be noted that though that school of miniature is famed for its general features of style, it bears the imprint of animation, typical of popular art.  And particular talented artists stand out for their distinctly individual expressive means.  This makes itself felt especially in their preference of one corrective style or another, or in strictly graphic trends, in the mastery of lines and colors, the degree of technical accomplishment and the like.

The Arts of Vaspourakan

In the hand-written books of Vaspourakan during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the ornamental design should be singled out for its peculiar features as to the general arrangement of miniatures and style.  The illuminations in the manuscripts preserve traditional presentation, as a rule, i.e., they are pictured on the initial page, even before the Canon Table designs, thereby making a kind of pictorial prologue of the book.

Artist Zakaria Avantsi (of Avants), The Creation of Eve, Gospel, 1595, Avants Desert, MS 2804, 8b, size 25 x 18

The topics vary on a wide range: from biblical subjects to scenes of workaday life, from religious mystics to the Christianized refraction of pagan pantheism.  The illuminators achieved such diversity at times reproducing Old Testament stories such as "The Creation of the World", "The Fall of Adam and Eve", "The Sacrifice of Abraham" and "Abraham Entertaining the Angels", "The Meeting of Eve and Joseph", etc.  Sometimes they supplemented with subjects from local predilections highlighting certain aspects of social-political intentions: the massacre of the children of Bethlehem, a wide range of Jesus' miracles, the scene of Pilate's doom and so on.  Clearly, the inclusion of themes from the Old Testament often harmonized with scenes from the New Testament in an allegorical-mystical form.  In this sense, the miniaturists of Vaspourakan drew upon the rich reliefs and frescoes of Sourp Khach church, on the Island of Akhtamar, delineating motifs and patterns from the Old Testament which virtually explicated and complemented scenes from the New Testament.  S. Der-Nersessian has rightly remarked that a similar presentation of idea or content had originated in Armenian art before the fifth century and subsequently founds its unmistakable expression in the famous gospel of "Echmiadzin" in 989.

In general, the illumination of the Lord's pictures is archaic in nature, the prototypes occurring mainly in the tenth and eleventh century records.  For instance, the theme of "The Sacrifice of Abraham", which usually initiates a series of pictures in Vaspourakan miniatures, is just a replica of the mural relief on the same subject in Sourp Khach church in Akhtamar (tenth century). 

Artist Markare?, The Raising of Lazarus, Gospel, 1315, Khordeants Monastery, MS 2930, 15a, size 31 x 24

Several scenes from "The Last Supper" are directly associated with the illumination of MS 6201 of the Madenataran, executed in 1038.  The same is true of the various details of "Crucifixion": the posture and form of Jesus' body, the presentation of the allegorical pictures of the sun and the moon, stemming from pagan tradition, "The Adoration of the Magi" as presented in separate scenes and other subjects.  In particular cases, the four evangelists are depicted in the fourteenth century in the order accepted in the tenth and eleventh centuries: side by side on one page, standing facing each other (while from the eleventh century, the portrait of each evangelist is draw at the beginning of the gospel ascribed to him).  The symbolic-dogmatic trend, along with the preservation of folklore elements, figures as the keynote of the Vaspourakan miniature of the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth centuries.  This explains the iconographic peculiarities of that school.  However, from the close of the fifteenth century, the disposition in illumination gradually shifts to the living reality.

On the whole, the miniatures of Vaspourakan manifest a strictly individual iconography, profuse in archaic elements and apocryphal divergences, though their principal subject remains to be Christ and his deeds.

The Art of Book Illustration & Miniatures Continued > > >

*Information and photos about Vaspourakan miniature found on this site, unless otherwise indicated, are quoted and taken  from Armenian Miniature Vaspourakan [Madenataran, Mashtot's Institute of Old Manuscripts Under the Auspices of the Council of Ministers of the Armenian SSR, 1978; "Sovetakan Grogh" Publishing House, Yerevan].  Compiled, Introduction, and Commentaries by Hravard Hakopian; Editors: V.H. Kazarian, A.S. Matevossian; publishing editors: V.L. Vartanian, A.S. Sharourian, M.V. Sahagian, A.S. Hovsepian; photographer:R.S. Bedrossian; Kegharvesdagan editor: Ok. A. Asadrian; Krki maged@ yev dekh. editoring: A.A. Madiniani; Proofreading Editors: E. B. Boghossian, B. S. Avedissian, A. O. Ayvazian.