95 years ago today, on June 22, 1931, Artashes Hovsepyan, the visionary Armenian sculptor whose monumental works helped shape the face of Yerevan and became one of the defining figures of Armenian sculpture in the second half of the 20th century, was born in the mountain village of Sarnakunk in the Syunik province of Armenia.
From Sarnakunk To Leningrad
Hovsepyan worked as a laborer before pursuing his artistic training. In 1954, he was admitted to the Terlemezyan Art School in Yerevan, then transferred to the Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Saint Petersburg from the second year, graduating in 1961.
The Tamanyan Monument
In 1961, Hovsepyan participated in the competition for the statue of Alexander Tamanyan and won both the 1st and 2nd prizes. 13 years would pass between the competition victory and the day the monument finally stood at the foot of the Cascade. The ceremonial opening took place on June 26, 1974, in the heart of the city Tamanyan had designed.
The work is one of the few monuments in the world dedicated to an architect. A 3-meter-high basalt sculpture of Tamanyan stands on a polished gray granite platform, depicting the architect in a crouched position, leaning over a table built of hewn basalt blocks, a long shawl reaching down to his heels on his shoulders. According to the sculptor’s idea, the left stone symbolizes the old architecture, while the right one is a symbol of a new period of architecture. Thus, Alexander Tamanyan bridged these two periods by building Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.
Hovsepyan described his choice of material in poetic terms. “Basalt, black or dark gray, is the son of lava and ash. Basalt can be highly stretched and its flexibility is legendary,” the sculptor said.
The Epic In Stone
The Tamanyan monument was only the beginning of Hovsepyan’s work at the Cascade. In the 1980s, when the Cascade was still under construction, architect Jim Torosyan invited Hovsepyan to design one of the halls of the complex. Over the next 4 years, working with the help of 4 masons, Hovsepyan created a monumental Sasuntsi Davit sculpture based on Hakob Kojoyan’s painting of the same name. The 1988 earthquake and then the collapse of the Soviet Union prevented him from finishing the work.
The work depicts more than 30 episodes from the Armenian epic, with Davit at the center riding his horse Qurkik Jalali, holding a lightning-laden sword at the moment of a charging attack.
For nearly three decades the work sat unfinished and inaccessible. The sculpture was finally opened to the public on May 21, 2016, with the 85-year-old sculptor in attendance at the Cafesjian Center for the Arts. He had already created separate reliefs on the same epic theme at the Sasuntsi Davit metro station in 1981.
A City Sculpted
Hovsepyan is the author of over 50 sculptures, including the bust of Karl Marx, the eagle at the entrance to the city of Sisyan, the monument to the Kurtan residents killed in the Great Patriotic War, the bas-reliefs at St. Sargis Church in Yerevan, a cross-stone in the yard of the residence of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, the bas-reliefs at Yerevan Brandy Factory, the statue of Armen Tigranyan at Oval Park in Yerevan, the Orbeli Brothers Memorial in Tsaghkadzor, the statue of Nikoghayos Adonts in Sisyan, and the statue of Jivani in Javakhk. He was also the author of sketches for the reliefs of Saint Vardan Cathedral in New York, working with architect Rafael Israelyan. One of his last works was the statue of the celebrated Armenian writer Hrant Matevosyan, completed in 2013 in the yard of the school named after him.
The Sculptor’s Witness In Occupied Land
Among Hovsepyan’s most striking works were the sculptural elements he created for the Holy Ascension Church in Berdzor, the central city of the Kashatagh region in occupied Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). The church was built between 1996 and 1999. Hovsepyan sculpted the Mother of God with Child above the entrance lintel and an eagle breaking a yataghan on the eastern facade, with a quote from Grigor Narekatsi inscribed below. The yataghan-breaking eagle was a defiant Armenian image carved in stone, a small Turkish sword shattered in the talons of an Armenian symbol of resistance.
On August 26, 2022, after the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of the Armenian population of Berdzor, the town came under Azerbaijani occupation. Azerbaijani authorities announced plans to convert the church into a mosque, proposing to demolish the dome, dismantle the bell tower, build two minarets, and remove all Armenian inscriptions from the walls. They did not bother converting it. On May 11, 2024, satellite imagery confirmed that Azerbaijan had razed the Holy Ascension Church to the ground, leaving no trace of it. Hovsepyan’s sculptures, including the yataghan-breaking eagle, were destroyed following Azerbaijan’s systematic policy of cultural genocide.
The Maestro Of Silence
Sculptor Artashes Hovsepyan was called the Maestro of Silence, a name that captured the restrained monumentality of his work and the quiet dignity of his presence in Armenian cultural life. His sculptures rejected ornament for essence.
Hovsepyan received the 1st Prize of the USSR Government in Architecture. In 1989, he was granted the title of Merited Art Figure of Armenia, and in 2007 the title of People’s Painter of the Republic of Armenia.
A Legacy Carved In Stone
Artashes Hovsepyan passed away on July 6, 2017, at the age of 86. His monument to Tamanyan still stands where he placed it half a century ago, at the foot of the Cascade, the architect bent over his city. Inside the same complex, his Sasuntsi Davit sculpture still tells the Armenian epic in stone, unfinished. In occupied Artsakh, the Holy Ascension Church and the eagle he carved into its eastern wall no longer stand. Azerbaijan erased them.
Yerevan, the city Tamanyan designed and Hovsepyan carved, remembers them both. In Berdzor, only the memory remains.
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