A Brief Survey of Art History of

Artsakh - Nagorno Karabakh

Based on text by Patrick Donabedian (France), co-author of Levon Chorbajian et al,

Caucasian Knot: the History and Geo-Politics of Nagorno-Karabagh; Zed Books, 1994.

The art created in Artsakh or Khachen (both terms are historical Armenian names for today's Nagorno Karabakh) constitutes one of the important chapters in the history of Armenian art. It has progressed through the same major stages as did the Armenian art at large: from the adoption of Christianity early in the fourth century through to the end of the Middle Ages and on to the nineteenth century. As in the rest of Armenia, the principal expression of this medieval art has been ecclesiastical architecture.[1]

Numerous monuments, chapels, churches, and monastic complexes are preserved despite the total absence of maintenance over the past seventy years (with those in the former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Region representing only a small part of this architectural legacy}. Works in Nagorno Karabakh obey the same plans and are built according to the same techniques as those in the rest of Armenia.

Volcanic rock is the principal material. Mixed with lime, it forms the nucleus for the walls which are then covered with facing. The exterior facing can consist of carefully cut blocks for the large buildings in cities or in monasteries such as Gandzasar. But it was also common practice, as in several outlying provinces, to use stone less carefully cut for more modest structures, creating a more rustic appearance. The inscriptions on these facades appear exclusively in the Armenian language and often provide precise dating, the names of the patrons, and sometimes even the name of the architect.

There are several monuments which have come down to us from the pre-Christian period and from the early Middle Ages. Among them is the type of martyrium represented at Amaras (Martuni District) by the mausoleum of St. Grigoris (AD 489): a vaulted burial chamber equipped with two lateral vestibules that serves as the crypt for a church dating from a later period. Several chapels from this period consist of simple vaulted rooms (single nave) with an apse on the east sometimes flanked by two small rooms (Targmanchats Monastery near Karhat (Dashkesan, probably fifth century). The basilica at Tzitzernavank in Kashatagh (in former Azerbaijani SSR's Lachin District, probably fifth or sixth century) is the best-preserved example in Armenia of a basilica with three naves.[2]

Churches with a cupola built on a radiating or cruciform floor plan were numerous in the rest of Armenia during the seventh century and are well represented in Nagorno Karabakh: the chapel at Vankasar (former Azerbaijani SSR's Aghdam District, seventh century), where the cupola and its drum rest on the central square of a cruciform floor plan; Okhte Drni (Hadrut District, probably fifth to seventh centuries) with roughly cut and bonded walls enclosing a quatrefoil interior with four small diagonal niches.

We note, however, that certain plans frequently employed in other regions of Armenia during the seventh century are not, to our knowledge, found in Artsakh. These include the chamber with a cupola supported by wall braces (e.g. Church in Aruj, in Aragatzotn Province of the Republic of Armenia), the cruciform plan with a cupola on four free-standing pillars (e.g. St. Gayaneh Church), the radiating type with four rooms in a rectangle (e.g. St. Hripsimeh Church).

Curiously, few of the monuments are precisely dated from the post-Arab period and that of the kingdoms (ninth to the eleventh centuries), very productive periods in the other Armenian provinces. The structures we can place in this period are chapels on the cruciform plan with a cupola (Varazgom in Kashatagh (Lachin) District and Khunisavank in Getabaks (Kedabek District) and churches with a single nave (Poladlu and Parissos in Kedabek District).

On the other hand, during the post-Seljuk period and the beginning of the Mongol period (end of the twelfth, and the thirteenth century), architecture flourished, especially in the construction of monasteries. These were the active centers of culture and art, with their scriptoria where manuscripts were copied and illuminated. They also served as refuges for the population and were always fortified.

Churches with a single nave continued to be constructed in large numbers. At the monastery of Yeghishe Arakyal (or Jrvshtik) in Martakert District, we find eight single-naved chapels aligned from north to south. Less common is the type of free cross plan with a cupola found in the Chapel of St. Savior in Martakert District. Several monastic churches of the thirteenth century adopted the model used most widely throughout Armenia: the church with a cupola, in the inscribed cross plan with two or four angular rooms. This is the case for the monasteries at Dadivank (1214, see gallery  >>), Gandzasar (1216-1238, see gallery  >>), and Gtichavank (1241-1246, see gallery  >>). In the case of the two latter churches, the cone over the cupola is umbrella-shaped, a picturesque form widespread in Armenia from the eleventh century on.

Like all Armenian monasteries, those in Artsakh/Khachen/Nagorno Karabakh reveal great geometric rigor in the layout of their buildings. The monastery of Dadivank (twelfth-thirteenth centuries) is remarkable. Indeed, this monastic complex is sufficiently well preserved to leave no doubt that it was one of the grandest and most complete monasteries in all of medieval Armenia. Its approximately twenty buildings are divided into three groups: ecclesiastical, residential and ancillary.[3]

One of the most conspicuous characteristics of Armenian monastic architecture of the thirteenth century is the gavit or zhamatun which is found on the west facade of the churches and serves as narthex, mausoleum and assembly room. Some appear as a simple vaulted room or a gallery open to the south (Dadivank Monastery, St. Hakob of Mets Arrank or Mets Irants); others have an asymmetrical vaulted room on pillars (Gtichavank Monastery), and still others feature a quadrangular room with four central pillars supporting a pyramid dome (Dadivank Monastery).

In a fourth type of gavit, the vault is supported by a pair of crossed arches (Horrekavank Monastery, Bri Yeghtsi monastic complex, see gallery  >>). The gavit at Gandzasar (1261) is distinctive in the latter group by virtue of its superior quality of workmanship. Its layout corresponds exactly to that of Haghpat and Mshkavank monasteries (northern part of the Republic of Armenia). At the center of the ceiling, the cupola is illuminated by a central window that is adorned with the same stalactite ornaments as Geghard and Harich (monasteries in the Republic of Armenia dating from the early thirteenth century).

After an interruption from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, architecture flourished again during the seventeenth century. Bastions of spiritual and cultural life, the monasteries, were restored and enlarged. In this period we frequently find a single church at the center of a walled quadrangle (e.g. the rebuilt Amaras Monastery). As in other regions of Armenia, in Artsakh there are numerous monastic and parish churches constructed according to a relatively simple layout featuring a basilica with one, two, or three pairs of pillars.

The nineteenth century is distinguished by the merging of innovation and a return to the grand national monuments from the past. Thus when it was decided to construct the Cathedral of Our Saviour, also known as Ghazanchetsots (one of the grandest churches in all of Armenia, built in 1868-1888, in Nagorno Karabakh's former capital of Shushi) it was to ancient cathedral of St. Etchmiadzin (center of the Armenian Apostolic Church), the most important sanctuary for Armenians, that they looked for inspiration, at least for the plan.

More exposed to destruction, monuments from civil society are less numerous and less well preserved. Only ruins remain of the medieval fortresses. From the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, several palaces of Armenian meliks (scions or dukes of Nagorno Karabakh) should be noted, especially the Beglarian Palace in Gulistan (Shahumian District) and Avanian Palace in Togh (in Hadrut District).

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries several Moslem monuments appear. They are linked to the emergence of the Khanate of Shushi, and, as we have seen above, the only three mosques in Nagorno Karabakh were built in this city.

We should also mention some mausoleums from the Mongol epoch (fourteenth century) on the periphery of Nagorno Karabakh, in the former Azerbaijani SSR's districts of Fizuli, Kubatly, and Lachin. The mausoleum at Khachen-Dorbatly (1314), on the border of the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Region, not far from the city of Aghdam, reveals a great similarity in sculpted decor to an Armenian funerary church of the same period, the chapel at Eghvard. Perhaps these two works are by the same artist, who signed "Shahik" in Armenian and "Shahenzi" in Persian.[4]

The stone facades of the churches lent themselves to sculptures, which are particularly important in thirteenth-century monuments. The forms are the same as those found throughout Armenia: sculpted bands around the doors and windows, blind arcature running along the facades and the drum of the cupola, and animal bas-reliefs above the openings. Special mention should be made of the abundant sculpted decor on two churches: at Dadivank Monastery, where we see the donors displaying a model of the church, and, above all, at Gandzasar Monastery, where the donors are shown on the drum with two of them holding the model above their heads.

Attention should be paid to the great care which went into the construction of the Cathedral at Gandzasar, the spiritual and temporal center of the main principality of the region. In its decor we find elements which relate it to two other Armenian monuments from the early thirteenth century: the colonnade on the drum resembles that at Harich (1201, in Shirak Province of the Republic of Armenia) and the great sculpted cross at the top of the facade is also found at Kecharis (built around 1214, in Kotayk Province of the Republic of Armenia).

Khachkars, stone slabs decorated with a cross, represent a special chapter in the history of Armenian sculpture and are unique to this country. In the first stage of their history, this type of monument already existed in Artsakh, as attested by one of the earliest dated samples of Armenia, in a village on the eastern shore of Lake Sevan (Metz Mazra, 881) which was part of the dominion of the princes of Khachen.[5] A very large number of khachkars are also found in Nagorno Karabakh. Several thirteenth-century examples look particularly refined. We note the two khachkars of Gtichavank Monastery, dating from about 1246 (one of which is preserved at St. Etchmiadzin in Armenia), shows the two bishops who founded the monastery. There are also the two plaques embedded in the bell-tower at Dadivank Monastery (1283), which are veritable laceworks in stone.

More so than mural paintings, of which nothing remains except a few fragments from the interior of the main church at Dadivank Monastery, we have a fair number of illuminated manuscripts, especially from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. There were over thirty scriptoria at the time, including those at Gandzak (present-day city of Gandja in Azerbaijan), as well as at the monasteries of Gandzasar, Khoranashat, Targmanchats and Erits Mankants (see gallery  >>), in Artsakh.

Recently conducted research identifies a group of illuminated works specific to the Artsakh-Utik region (or Artsakh-Sevan).[6] The works in this group come from the north-eastern provinces of Armenia and are close, in their linear and unadorned style, to those of the Province of Siunik, but also to the miniatures from Vaspurakan Province (south-western part of historical Armenia, now in Turkey). They show the same naiive faces with large curved eyes under the long lines of eyebrows. The compositions are simple and monumental, often with an iconography that is original and distinct from Byzantine models.

It is not possible to discuss all the minor arts here, especially the metalworking arts which were developed in ancient Artsakh. We know that in the tenth century dyed fabrics and rugs from this region were highly valued by the Arabs. Al-Muqadasi wrote that "They are without equal."[7] Two accounts by the thirteenth-century Armenian historian Kirakos Gandzaketsi mention embroideries and altar curtains by his contemporaries the Princesses of Khachen, Arzu and Khorishah.[8] The abundance of rugs produced in the modern period is rooted in this solid tradition. Indeed, recent research has begun to highlight the importance of the Armenian region of Artsakh/Nagorno Karabakh in the history of rugs known as "Caucasian."[9]

Among woven works by Karabakhi Armenians, we note several types. Rugs in an "eaglebands " or "sunburst" pattern, a sub-type of Armenian rug featuring dragons, whose center of manufacture from the eighteenth century was Artsakh's province of Jraberd (Chelabert), have characteristic large radiating medallions. There were also rugs with serpents or clouds "cloudbands," with octagonal medallions comprising four pairs of serpents in an S shape, and rugs with a series of octagonal, 

cross-shaped or rhomboid medallions, often bordered by a red band. Artsakh - Nagorno Karabakh is also the source of some of the oldest rugs bearing Armenian inscriptions: the rug with three niches from the village of Banants (1602), the rug of Catholicos Nerses of Aghvank (1731), and, perhaps, the famous Guhar (Gohar) Rug (1700). We should add, finally, that most rugs with Armenian inscriptions come, it seems, from Nagorno Karabakh.[10]