ARMENIAN ART. This art and that of Georgia are so closely related as to form but a single style, which might be called the art of the Caucasus. Its early antiquities are not very well known: they are related to those of the Sar mathians and Scythians of Turkestan and Si beria, and of the cities of Crimea and the Bos porus. In northern Armenia there are thou sands of graves in the form of large mounds, and especially near Kaaban, there are many dolmens. It is from these tombs (e.g., Koban and Ka unta) that the objects hare come which show us the condition of the arts here just before and after the Christian era. It was rather late when both Persian and Roman influences penetrated simultaneously. Building had been almost en tirely in wood, except in the case of the numer ous fortresses. The only ruins yet studied of the Roman period are those at Karni. This region seems to have become an important centre for the propagation of that most interesting form of barbaric art which we associate with Goths, Celts, Scandinavians, Anglo-Saxons, Lombards, and other early Germanic tribes, and of which the treasury of Guerrazar is the most brilliant example. Its main characteristics are: The technique of cloisonne enamel, the setting of colored glass in metal bands soldered to a metal ground, and the use of geometric ornamentation. Beginning in Central Asia, it passed westward, apparently with the emigration of the Goths, by whom it was presumably imparted to the other tribes. Shortly after, when the country had become Christianized, the history of archi tecture and monumental sculpture in this region began. The churches built between the Seventh and Sixteenth centuries are not large, but have considerable character.
The Caucasus felt the influence of Byzantine art at all times, but added to it, and to its own inherited traits, something from Syria, whose missionaries had converted it and formed its literature. At one time Armenia became, in fact, a province of the Empire politically as well as artistically. Then, during the Middle Ages, the Crusaders gave a Western tinge, and still later came the influence of Russian art. The earliest known church of Armenia, Saint Ripsima's at Vagashabad (618), is thoroughly Byzantine, a Greek cross with its four arms ending in apses and a central dome raised on a drum, circular inside and polygonal outside. As in so many Byzantine churches, the cruciform plan does not appear on the outside, as chapels fill in the spaces between the arms. The church at Usunlar,
with its peristyle colonnade. dates from 718-729. Both are still without ornament. It is possible that the church at Dighbur, from its similarities to buildings in Central Syria of the Sixth Cen tury, may be even earlier. Pitzeuda (c. Fifteenth Century), with its high dome and tunnel vaults, is very Byzantine. The culmination of a new style appears in the Cathedral of Ani (1010 A.D.), the most interesting church of Armenia. The ex terior, with its central dome raised on a high square drum, its exterior decorated with colo nettes, its internal clustered piers and pointed arches, as well as its vaulting system, reminds us in many ways of the European architecture. At the same date a church was built at Mokwi, Byzantine in every particular, and with the greatest similarity to the early Russian Church of Saint Sophia at Novgorod. The contemporary Cathedral of Kiutas in Imerethia is of equal im portance, but its plan is basilical instead of a Greek cross. This century was most prolific. In Abkhasia, the church of Mowki, with a charming dome and five naves with slender stone piers and cornices of great delicacy; that of Martvili, in Mingrelia, with exquisite decorative details, are samples of a numerous class of which others are at Manglis, Kaben, Sion, Zarzma, etc. Later, in the Twelfth Century, are others at Bethania, Vardzia, Ghelathi. The purely architectural moldings are very simple; a cornice of a simple cove, sometimes decorated with painted or carved palmettes or foliage; a rude, ball-shaped capital; a torus molding woven into patterns and often carried out so as to join the windows and decora tive plaques in one scheme of ornament covering the whole facade. The climax is reached in the Fifteenth Century in the Church of Mtzkhet in Georgia, Armenian in its dome and plan, Byzan tine in its proportions, Georgian in its rich inter laced decorative patterns with the addition of Byzantine floral designs. Statuary and figures in relief appear to have been systematically avoided, and when used were crude and provin cial. In some churches the king, bishop, or archi tect is represented holding the model of the building; or Christ is blessing. But the animal and decorative sculpture is much more artistic. The fighting animals are a reminiscence of Per sian art; the peacocks, doves, griffins, and dragons, heraldically arrayed or intertwined with vines, are derived from Byzantine models.