Arshile Gorky’s Philosophical Thoughts in his Letters

Abstract

Arshile Gorky or Vostanik-Manuk Adoian (1904-1948) is one of the innovators of American painting of the 20th century, whose name has been included in many encyclopedias of science and art. Gorky is considered as the founder of surrealist expressionism in world painting. The Armenian painter had a difficult fate. When he was four years old, his father, Sedrak Adoian, left his native village of Khorgom, went to the United States and settled in the Armenianpopulated town of Watertown near Boston. Before leaving Khorgom, he presents his son Vostanik with a pair of big peasant slippers, which can later be seen in Gorky’s surrealistic paintings. With his younger sister Vardush and his beloved mother Shushanik Gorky walked for many days on foot with the survivors of the Armenian Genocide, first to the center of Armenian Christianity in Etchmiadzin, then to Yerevan, where he stayed until he was 16 years old. Subsequnetly, by the invitation of his relatives, he travelled with great privations with his sister, first arrived in New York and then settled in Watertown. Gorky was involved in painting from an early age, then received his painting education in New York and earned a great reputation; he was considered one of the 4000 most famous people in the world, from the past to the present. In the Dictionary of Biography to People Past and Present, published in London in 1976, we read about Arshile Gorky: “Gorky, Arshile (1904-48), American painter, b. Armenia. Influenced by Picasso, Mirò; leader of Abstract Expressionists, used color to achieve emotional effect” [1, p. 215].