Niko Pirosmanashvili and Old Oriental Art (Stating The Issue)

Abstract

The article describes correlation of N. Pirosmanashvili’s art to the Mesopotamian culture. Georgian art historians, ethnologists, folklorists and researchers of artist’s creative work present importance of the Mesopotamian space for Georgian culture from different angles and analyze details revealed not only in art of Pirosmanashvili, but in memorial monuments and artifacts preserved in the ethnographic areas as well. At the same time, the emphasis is made on those essential features of Georgian reliefs from the Middle Ages, which are paradigmatically expressed in the art of the Ancient East. The same article manifests specificity directed not at any particular object, but towards the “constant observations” present in the Sumerian and Mari sculptures, in the “amazement” of Georgian temple reliefs and, finally, reflected in a similar approach of Pirosmanashvili’s “Fisherman in a Red Shirt”.