Members of the Arts community have also endeavored to “describe the indescribable.” Shahen Khachaturian’s edited collection The Color of Pain: The Reflection of the Armenian Genocide in Armenian Painting (Yerevan, Printoinfo Publishing House, 2010; ISBN 978-9939-53-643-9) is a compendium of Armenian artists’ account of mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. This 208 page bilingual (English and Armenian) large-format art book focuses upon color paintings on the Hamidian Massacres of the 1890s, the 1915 Genocide and the continued period of suffering long after the horrific deeds. This volume is a powerfully moving portrayal of the collective suffering from state-sponsored ethnic and religious persecution of the Armenian people. The insights are through the eyes of famous and notable Armenian artists. Many of the paintings included in this volume can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Armenia and the Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan. The painfully-evocative paintings include those by Hovhannes Ayvazovsky, Vartges Sureniants, Sarkis Khachaturian, Arshak Fetvadjian, V. Podpomogov (Ter-Astvatsatrian), Khoren Der-Harutian, Arshile Gorky (Vostanik Adoyan), Kero Antoyan, Carzou (Carnik Zulumian), Jansem (Hovhannes Semerdjian), Papaz (Hagop Papazian), Hagop Hagopian, Grigor Khandjian and others. The edited collection could have included other contemporary artists such as Canada’s Hagop Khoubesserian, but it is, without a doubt, an impressive volume. The quality of the color prints is excellent. It is often said that a picture can convey more than words. Together these works of art offer a highly-effective way to teach about the Young Turk’s genocide of Armenians. The Color of Pain is an important new volume that lends powerful visual testimony through the artists’ perspective. A DVD or website version would be useful to widen the audience reach of this volume. I could imagine such organizations as Facing History and the Genocide Education Project using such materials in their high school genocide education seminars. For a younger more visually-oriented generation, this might be quite informative.
As best we can, we continue to try to document the 1915 Genocide, but it is a very, very difficult account to write. We draw enormously upon dedicated individuals who have devoted a lifetime to tell as full a story as possible after such enormous death and trauma. But it not enough that scholars and artists pen this profoundly moving story. It also requires others to resist the ‘sin of indifference’ and read these important accounts. They need to better learn and understand.
Alan Whitehorn is author of a number of books on the Armenian Genocide, including Just Poems: Reflections on the Armenian Genocide.
