Happy Birthday, Master
Born in Gyumri, roots from Vanadzor, his whole life devoted to the world: 22 February is Artavazd Peleshyan’s birthday. The master became 78 years old.
During the last years it is probably for the first time that Artavazd Peleshyan is in Armenia on his birthday. It is difficult to guess what birthday wishes and from whom the master will receive. With his temperament and lifestyle he is one of those artists whose life and birthdays have never received public interest. Everywhere, including in our city, the master has close friends with whom he can often be seen in a quiet place, like in a café or a museum. The mental, heart-to-heart connection between Artavazd Peleshyan, Tigran Mansuryan and Hakob Hakobyan has lasted for decades. They have always admired each other. Hakob Hakobyan left them. Artavazd Peleshyan and Tigran Mansuryan continue to enjoy each other’s presence and often remember their painter friend. It is interesting that the three of them didn’t like talking much. Silence had united them and made them friends.
Hakob Hakobyan was telling that one day he say Artavazd Peleshyan sitting silent and thoughtful on the edge of a chair. “Such states were typical to him. I knew that Peleshyan didn’t
like being painted. However I dared to offer him and he agreed.” That painting still exists in Hakob Hakobyan’s house. I was asking the painter about that day trying to learn more: what they taking about, what they were telling. “Nothing. He was sitting silent and I was looking at him,” he answered. Now the film composer and the director meet and certainly tell about the painter so lively and with humor as if Hakob Hakobyan is with them.
Today, on Artavazd Peleshyan’s birthday, the tradition is not violated, especially when he is in Yerevan. Two old friends are going to meet. The same happened on 27 January, on Tigran Mansuryan’s birthday. And it is just obligatory to be present in that meetings, to hear the talks accompanied by a cup of tea or coffee. The geniuses of our times remember and tell things especially from their past. The past that is full of genuine emotions, sincere feelings, creative bohemia, wisdom: a life that they have fully lived. As image and music complete each other in cinema, likewise during that meetings the figurative film scenes of Peleshyan’s stories and Mansuryan’s melodic senses complement each other. And, of course, there is a subtle humor, which is so profound and multilayer that three days are needed to understand and “digest” it. In such meetings there is an impression that you are in Vernatun (garret) established by Hovhannes Tumanyan. Our geniuses are talking and telling, keeping silent and laughing…And not far from them, just a street away, the empty noise of the city can be heard: the emptiness of our century. Happy Birthday, Master.
Naira Paytyan