01. Vardges Surenyants, Abandoned, 1894. Oil on canvas. Caucasian National Art Galler, Taras Shevchenko Museum, Kiev.

02. Vardges Surenyants, Semiramis at the Corpse of Ara the Beautiful, 1899. Oil on canvas. Armenian National Gallery, Yerevan.

Vardges Surenyants (1860-1921) was an Armenian painter, graphic designer and art theorist. Surenyants was a member of the Peredvizhniki (“Wanderers” or “Itinerants”), a traveling arts coalition founded by llya Repin and aimed at spreading a socially conscious message to the people of Russia. As part of the movement, he sought to develop a national aesthetic for modern Armenia, based on the social realist style of painting and taking both historical scenes and scenes from everyday life as its subject matter. The first painting above is an example of the former and the second, of the latter.