Abstract – From Desperate Solidarity to Dispassionate Eye.

Shifting French Perspectives on Early Medieval Armenian Art

(ca 1894–1929) – In the years from the Hamidian massacres of the
1890s through the genocide, French scholars displayed a distinct
ambivalence toward the artistic culture of medieval Armenia, with the
ultimate resolution of becoming important contributors to a nascent,
specialized field of study. This article probes the origins of the
French attitude and of the incipient field of study by considering
selected scholars’ work. Analyzing the studies of Antoine Meillet,
Charles Diehl, and Jurgis Baltrušaitis, as exemplars, highlights phases
of the movement’s development, from a progressive rediscovery
of the Christian “East”, to a committed Armenophilia, and, finally,
to a systematic, disinterested, formalist study of Armenian art as
intersection and mediator of forms and ideas. This perspective,
viewed against the backdrop of one of the greatest tragedies in
modern history, provides a long view and explanation of an evolving
scholarly attitude. It uncovers the roots of today’s prevailing attitudes
toward Armenian artistic culture.

Keywords – Antoine Meillet, Armenian studies in France, Armenian

genocide, art history, Byzantine studies, Charles Diehl, Jurgis
Baltrušaitis, Hamidian massacres, philarmenism, philology

Adrien Palladino
Masaryk University
96 adrien.palladino@phil.muni.cz
 From Desperate
Solidarity to
Dispassionate
Eye
Shifting French Perspectives on Early
Medieval Armenian Art (ca 1894–1929)
Adrien Palladino

A series of unusual historical circumstances in “Christian East” to a more committed Armeno-

the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries pro- philia that prompted, later, increasingly system-
duced a ballooning of modern Armenian studies atic studies on Armenian art as mediator of forms
through French and Francophone scholars’ in- and ideas following closer critiques of early valo-
terventions. Presently, this article sifts through rizing scholarship. Simultaneously, Francophone
the grainy archives of Armenian historiography scholars’ work on Armenia remained political-
to analyze the roots of these contributions by fo- ly remote through the adoption of an outside or
cusing on the studies of select scholars between “othering” anthropological scrim that ensured
the fin de siècle to the interwar period. Primarily,
these scholars were chosen to highlight the impact * The present text was published within the project Cultural
Interactions in the Medieval Subcaucasian Region: Historio-
of French-speaking scholarship on the study of graphical and Art Historical Perspectives (GF21­01706L). I take
late antique and medieval Armenian art. In doing the opportunity here to thank the participants of the con-
ference and the two anonymous peer-reviewers for their
so, I articulate a movement progressing from a gen- comments, as well as Kris Racaniello for their help and
eral scholarly and “orientalist” rediscovery of the careful proofreading. 97
 scholars dissociated their studies almost entire-
ly from the humanitarian and political engage-
ment that first prompted and engaged the early
Francophone “rediscovery”.
Three main moments and corresponding fig-
ures shape this study. First, philologist Antoine
Meillet (1866–1936) is considered alongside the
“rediscovery” of Armenia at the end of the nine-
teenth century along with the first scholarly stud-
ies on historical Armenia in France. These early
studies resulted in the formation of the Society
of Armenian Studies in the years following the
Hamidian massacres and the Armenian genocide.
From the last decades of the nineteenth century to
the aftermath of the 1914–1918 war, the study of
Armenian monuments, an engaged and politically
charged Armenophilia, as well as humanitari-
an commitment were intertwined. Second, the
Byzantine art historian Charles Diehl (1859–1944)
will serve as a barometer to gauge the scholarly
discourse on early medieval Armenia in the 1920s.
Finally, the French-educated and -speaking Lithu-
anian art historian Jurgis Baltrušaitis (1903–1988)
and his studies on Caucasian materials will be
examined against the backdrop of these earlier
studies. Leaping through decades and diverse
political circumstances, these case studies high-
light the metamorphosis in French perspectives
toward Armenian art and culture, identifying
possible origins for certain attitudes prevalent to
this day towards the artistic culture of Armenia.
Simultaneously, it shows how the increased pro-
fessionalization of art history in the 1900s prompt-
ed the study of Armenian art to be marginalized
in favor of “objective” formalizing approaches.
At its core, tragedy: from Philarmenic
commitment to the foundation of the
Revue des études arméniennes
The first step in the progressive rediscovery of
the arts of medieval Armenia by European schol-
ars occurred early, with the Treaty of Adrianople
signed in 1829 between the Ottoman Empire and
Russia, which effectively marked the end of the
conflict between these two powers and reshuffled
the political chessboard in the whole Black Sea re-
98 gion, profoundly impacting Russia’s policies in the
Caucasus and the Near East1. The Treaty enabled
Greek independence, a cause to which European
philhellenes and romantics had largely committed
themselves and which was ratified in 1832 by the
Treaty of Constantinople2. More importantly for
our purpose, the broader opening of the Bospho-
rus Strait to Western fleets marked for Europe-
an travelers – who were already prepared by the
study of the Greek monuments – a great moment
of “rediscovery” of the East in general, and of Asia
Minor and the Southern Caucasus in particular,
which lasted from the 1830s to the second half of
the nineteenth century3. As such, the middle of the
nineteenth century saw major studies by travelers
and scholars on the Southern Caucasus and its cul-
ture (including material and artistic), such as those
of Frédéric DuBois de Montperreux (1798–1850),
Charles Texier (1802–1871), Marie-Félicité Brosset
(1802–1880), or, slightly later, Jacques de Morgan
(1857–1924)4. These studies significantly impacted
French scholarship, which was by then ready to re-
ceive the stimulus of these new monuments beyond
the better-known territory of ancient and “Byzan-
tine” Greece and which had already well started
the artistic and scholarly invention of a dreamed
Orient stretching from the Balkans across the en-
tire Mediterranean5. Armenian monuments be-
came better known and often used as comparative
material for the study of European monuments, as
is apparent, for example, in the writings of schol-
ars such as Jules Quicherat (1814–1882). Informed
chiefly by Brosset’s studies, Quicherat was an early
adopter of Armenian architectural monuments in
his influential course at the École des Chartes in
the second half of the nineteenth century6. The
relationship between Armenian art, “Byzantine”
art, and “French” Romanesque was emerging at
this time, and serves as a recurrent touchstone in
this paper, a subject that will resurface especially
in the studies of Baltrušaitis.
The increased geopolitical interests for the region
and the presence of more European travelers in
Ottoman Turkey and in the Caucasus over the
course of the second half of the nineteenth centu-
ry meant that many were, sadly, witnesses of the
massacres perpetuated against the Armenians
of the Ottoman Empire which took place under
the reign of the “Bloody Sultan” Abdülhamid ii
(1876–1909), the last autocratic sultan who ruled
until 19097. These massacres, considered by
some scholars as a first phase of the Armenian
genocide, claimed between 100,000 and 300,000
victims between 1894 and 18978. Many Europe-
an scholars, politicians, writers, and public fig-
ures were direct or indirect witnesses of these
crimes against humanity – an expression that
was formulated but not yet widespread in these
years – mobilized in defense of the victims, alas
often with reduced impact on public or political
decisions9. In the French context, some of the
important eyewitnesses figures were, for exam-
ple, the ambassador of France in Constantinople,
Paul Cambon (1843–1924), who had warned the
Quai d’Orsay already since 1891, the symbolist
poet Pierre Quillard (1864–1912) or the politician
and Hellenist Victor Bérard (1864–1931)10. These
and other figures – along with many Arme-
nians exiled in France, of whom the poet Aršak
Čobanian (1872–1954) remains the most famous
spokesman – became alarmed observers of the
events of those years, trying to draw the atten-
tion of the French public and politicians to the
dire situation of the Armenian populations of
the Ottoman Empire, with the aim of initiating
humanitarian and diplomatic interventions11. The
political dimensions of the Philarmenian move-
ment have been questioned, with some authors
notably suggesting that particular parties were
covering up anti-Armenian activities or serving
1 Alexander Bitis, Russia and the Eastern Question: Army, Gov-
ernment and Society, 1815–1833, sp. chap. ix, pp. 349–377;
Nicolae Ciachir, “The Adrianople Treaty (1829) and its Euro-
pean implications”, in European Politics 1815–1848, Frederick
C. Schneid ed., Farnham 2017, pp. 95–113.
2 On the political dimensions of the Greek war of independen-
ce in Europe, see, e.g., Walter Bruyère-Ostells, “Le philhel-
lénisme: creuset d’un romantisme politique européen?”, in
Les romantismes politiques en Europe, Gérard Raulet ed., Paris
2009, pp. 417–439; Hervé Mazurel, “‘Nous sommes tous des
Grecs’. Le moment philhellène de l’Occident romantique,
1821–1830”, Monde(s), i (2012), pp. 71–88.
3 On European traveler’s rediscovering Armenia, see Eurasia-
tica, xvii (2021): Il viaggio in Armenia. Dall’antichità ai nostri
giorni, Aldo Ferrari, Sona Haroutyunian, Paolo Lucca eds,
Venice 2021; Claudia Niederl-Garber, Wie Europa Armenien
“entdeckte”. Das Bekanntwerden der Kunstgeschichte Armeniens
im Spiegel westlicher Reisender, Münster 2013.
4 Frédéric DuBois de Montperreux, Voyage autour du Caucase,
chez les Tscherkesses et les Abkhases, en Colchide, en Géorgie,
en Arménie et en Crimée, 6 vols, Paris 1839–1849; Charles
Texier, Description de l’Arménie et de la Perse, de la Méso-
potamie, Paris 1842–1845; Marie-Félicité Brosset, Rapports
sur un voyage archéologique exécuté dans la Géorgie et dans
l’Arménie en 1847–1848 sous les auspices du Prince Vorontzof
Lieutenant du Caucase, Saint Petersburg 1851; Idem, Les ruines
d’Ani, capitale de l’Arménie sous les rois bagratides aux xe et
xie siècles, 2 vols, Saint Petersburg 1860–1861; Jacques de
Morgan, Mission scientifique au Caucase, 2 vols, Paris 1889.
Brosset’s situation was somewhat different in that he was
a resident and member of the Academy of Saint Petersburg
and officially recognized by the Russian authorities as one
of the best specialists in medieval Georgia and Armenia.
5 Literature on this topic is vast, see, e.g., Christine Peltre, Re-
tour en Arcadie. Le voyage des artistes français en Grèce au xixe
siècle, Paris 1997; more broadly, L’invention scientifique de la
Méditerranée: Égypte, Morée, Algérie, Marie-Noëlle Bourget,
Bernard Lepetit, Daniel Nordman, Maroula Sinarellis eds,
Paris 1998.
6 Jules Quicherat, Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire. Mé-
moires et fragments réunis et mis en ordre par Arthur Giry et
Auguste Castan, précédés d’une notice sur la vie et les travaux de
J. Quicherat par Robert de Lasteyrie, Paris 1886, 2 vols, vol. 2,
sp. pp. 432–433. See Jean-Michel Leniaud,“Projecteur sur une
zone d’ombre dans l’histoire de l’art médiéval: le cours inédit
d’archéologie médiévale de Jules Quicherat (1814–1882)”, in
Histoire de l’histoire de l’art en France du xixe siècle, Roland
Recht et al. eds, Paris 2008, pp. 47–68.
7 See the two volumes of Études arméniennes contemporaines:
Les massacres de l’époque hamidienne. i: récits globaux, approches
locales, x (2018) and ii: représentations et perspectives, xi (2018).
8 For the different figures which were given then and today’s
estimates, see Taner Akçam, A Shameful Act: The Armenian
Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, New York
2006. Regarding the phases of the genocide, see the crucial
book of Benny Morris, Dror Ze’evi, The thirty-year genoci-
de. Turkey’s destruction of its Christian minorities 1894–1924,
Cambridge, ma / London 2019. The authors, who brou-
ght to light considerable new archival evidence, consi-
der the Hamidian massacres as the first systematic phase
of the genocide.
9 Vincent Duclert, La France face au génocide des Arméniens du
milieu du xixe siècle à nos jours. Une nation impériale et le de-
voir d’humanité, Paris 2015. For other contexts, see also, e.g.,
Oded Y. Steinberg, “The confirmation of the worst fears:
James Bryce, British Diplomacy and the Armenian massacres
of 1894–1896”, Études arméniennes contemporaines: Les mas-
sacres de l’époque hamidienne. ii: représentations et perspectives,
xi (2018), pp. 15–39; Stefan Ihrig, “Germany and the 1890s
Armenian massacres: Questions of morality in foreign policy”,
Études arméniennes contemporaines: Les massacres de l’époque ha-
midienne. ii: représentations et perspectives, xi (2018), pp. 75–92;
Ann Marie Wilson, “In the name of God, civilization, and
humanity: the United States and the Armenian massacres
of the 1890s”, Le Mouvement social, ccxxvii (2009), pp. 27–44;
Margaret Lavinia Anderson, “‘Down in Turkey, far away’:
Human Rights, the Armenian Massacres, and Orientalism in
Wilhelmine Germany”, The Journal of Modern History, lxxix/1
(2007), pp. 80–111.
10 See, e.g., Agnès Vahramian, “De l’Affaire Dreyfus au mou-
vement arménophile: Pierre Quillard et Pro Armenia”, Revue
d’histoire de la Shoah, clxxvii–clxxviii (2003), pp. 335–355;
Gilles Pécout, “Victor Bérard arménophile et philhellène.
Signification politique d’une amitié méditerranéenne”, in
Portraits de Victor Bérard, Sophie Basch ed., Athens 2015,
pp. 189–208.
11 Edmond Khayadjian, Archag Tchobanian et le mouvement ar-
ménophile arménien, Marseille 1986. 99

1 / Title page of the first
issue of Pro Armenia,
November 25, 1900
2 / Photographic portrait
100 of Antoine Meillet
other causes than that of the Armenian popula-
tion12. While this issue cannot be developed here,
it must nevertheless be acknowledged that the
impact of this Armenophile moment on publica-
tions activities and on the knowledge of Armenian
culture and scholarship in France has been sig-
nificant. Indeed, there followed a series of books
and articles on Armenia by scholars committed to
shedding light on the fate of the Armenian peo-
ple13. Emblematic in this sense is Pierre Quillard’s
founding of the journal Pro Armenia in November
1900, which served from 1900 to 1908 as the main
platform for the Armenophile movement [Fig. 1].
The journal – in which important figures of the
political and cultural world such as the future
Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)
or the socialist politician Jean Jaurès (1859–1914)
participated – aimed at denouncing the atrocities
of the Hamidian regime but also at fighting ste-
reotypes circulating about Armenians in Europe14.
Against the backdrop of the Dreyfus Affair, which
had shaken and polarized France, the magazine
also spoke out against the anti-Semitic tendencies
of the population: indeed, the same stereotypes
about Armenians had provoked racist compari-
sons between Armenians and Jews on the part of
anti-Semites which prompted audiences to become
accustomed to seeing Armenians as a poor nation
of persecuted “Orientals” calling for help from the
great colonial powers15. Despite Jaurès’ speech of
1896, during which he noted that the massacres of
1895 marked the beginning of a “war of extermina-
tion” and called on the broad audience not to give
in to the destruction of vulnerable societies and
to remember their political commitment, the Ar-
menophiles were unfortunately powerless to suffi-
ciently mobilize public opinion and prompt a real
political action in Europe16. Admittedly, the great
Hamidian massacres were suspended in 1897
as a result of international pressure, but not before
they had claimed an estimated 100,000 to 300,000
victims and robbed the Armenian populations of
the Ottoman Empire of their ability to resist fur-
ther persecutions. It was not over, even with the
public condemnations, however. History was to
repeat itself, much more tragically and despite the
warnings of Armenophiles. The relative silence of
politicians on the eve of the 1914–1918 war, despite
the public denunciation in May 1915 of the crimes
of the Ottoman government, allowed one of the
worst tragedies of the twentieth century: the sys-
tematic genocide of Armenians between 1915 and
1916, with continuing atrocities until 192417.
Although some voices were still heard during the
First World War, Europe itself was engulfed into
the conflict and turned its gaze to problems of in-
ternal politics and crisis management18. Faced with
the silence of the authorities and the difficulties of
organizing humanitarian aid, researchers became
involved rather through study and writing: if it
was not possible to repair the damage and bring
back the thousands of victims, it was at least neces-
sary to make the voice of Armenia heard through
its ancestral culture by working to better under-
stand the historical, cultural and philological her-
itage of a people threatened with disappearance.
One of the philarmenians in this period,
the philologist and linguist Antoine Meillet
(1866–1936) [Fig. 2] played a key role in the cre-
ation of an institutional framework for Arme-
nian studies. A remarkable student of the linguist
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) but also of the
Armenologist Auguste Carrière (1838–1902), Meil-
let was one of the leading figures in the renewal of
linguistics, comparative grammar and Indo-Euro-
pean languages in France19. Beyond the borders
of France, Meillet completed his formation with
the German founder of modern Armenian lin-
guistics, Heinrich Hübschmann (1848–1908) in
the late 1880s. Importantly, Meillet also spent, in
1890–1891, a stay with the Mekhitarist Congre-
gation in Vienna, where he was the student of
Yakovbos Tašean (1866–1933), thus being extreme-
ly close to the most influential institution of the
Armenian diaspora20. Meillet went on to become
professor at the École pratique des Hautes Études
since 1891, holding the chair of Armenian at the
École des langues orientales since 1902 and that of
comparative grammar at the Collège de France since
1905. He became the mentor of figures such as
Georges Dumézil (1898–1986), Émile Benveniste
(1902–1976), but also of Hračja Ačarjan (1876–1953),
one of the pioneers of modern linguistic stud-
ies in Armenia. Meillet’s publications, such as
the Esquisse d’une grammaire comparée published
in Vienna and his Altarmenisches Elementarbuch
remain fundamental contributions to this day21.
Meillet made two trips to Armenia, first in
May-July 1891 and again in July-August 190322.
The latter had allowed him to perfect his mastery
of Armenian but also to become familiar with an-
cient manuscripts in the library of the monastery of
Ējmiatsin, which he would go on to later publish23.
12 See in particular the critical position of historian Arakel
Grigori Babakhanyan, pen name Leo, From the Past. Memoirs,
Papers, Judgements [in Armenian], Tbilisi 1925; Galust Galoy-
an, Hayastane yev Mets Terutyunnere 1917–1923tt. [Armenia
and the Ruling Powers 1917–1923], Yerevan 1999.
13 Vincent Duclert, Gilles Pécout, “La mobilisation intellec-
tuelle face aux massacres d’Arménie”, in Les Exclus en Europe,
1830–1930, André Gueslin, Dominique Kalifa eds, Paris 1999,
pp. 323–344; Arménie, une passion française: Le mouvement armé-
nophile en France, 1878–1923, Claire Mouradian et al. eds, Paris
2007; Duclert, La France face au génocide (n. 9), sp. pp. 61–202,
with a rich bibliography. For a broader context, see also Da-
vide Rodogno, Against Massacre. Humanitarian interventions
in the Ottoman Empire, 1815–1914, Princeton 2012.
14 Vahramian, “De l’Affaire Dreyfus ” (n. 10).
15 See Joanne Laycock, Imagining Armenia. Orientalism, ambiguity
and intervention, 1879 –1925, Manchester 2009. On the stereo-
types, which would continue well into the twentieth century,
see, e.g., Anouche Kunth, “Dans les rets de la xénophobie
et de l’antisémitisme: les réfugiés arméniens en France, des
années 1920 à 1945”, Archives juives, xlviii/1 (2015), pp. 72–95.
16 Vincent Duclert, “Jean Jaurès et la défense des Arméniens.
Le tournant du discours du 3 novembre 1896”, Cahiers Jaurès,
iii (2015), pp. 63–88. For the text, reedited on the occasion of
the 100-year commemoration of the Armenian genocide, see
Jean Jeaurès, Il faut sauver les Arméniens, Vincent Duclert ed.,
Paris 2015.
17 Le génocide des Arméniens, Conseil scientifique international pour
l’étude du génocide des Arméniens ed., Paris 2015; Duclert, La
France face au génocide (n. 9). See also Morris/Ze’evi, The thirty-ye-
ar genocide (n. 8); Akçam, A Shameful Act (n. 8); Idem, The Young
Turks’ Crime Against Humanity. The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic
Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire, Princeton 2012.
18 Engaged texts continued to be published also during the war,
see, e.g., Jacques de Morgan, Contre les barbares de l’Orient.
Études sur la Turquie, ses félonies et ses crimes. Sur la marche
des Alliés dans l’Asie antérieure. Sur la solution de la question
d’Orient, Paris/Nancy 1918.
19 Gabriel Bergougnoux, Charles de Lamberterie, Meillet au-
jourd’hui, Leuven/Paris 2006.
20 See Jacobus Dashian, Catalog der armenischen Handschriften
in der k.k. Hofbibliothek zu Wien, Vienna 1891.
21 Antoine Meillet, Altarmenisches Elementarbuch, Heidelberg
1913; Idem, Esquisse d’une grammaire comparée de l’arménien
classique, Vienna 1903 and rev. ed. Vienna 1936.
22 See Meillet en Arménie. Journaux et correspondance (1891, 1903),
Francis Gandon ed., Limoges 2014; Pierre Ragot, “À propos
du voyage de Meillet en Arménie (1891, 1903)”, Anabases, xxii
(2015), pp. 233–242; Charles de Lamberterie, “Meillet et l’Armé-
nien”, Histoire, Épistémologie, Langage, x/2 (1988), pp. 217–234.
23 Antoine Meillet, “Quelques anciens manuscrits de l’Évan-
gile arménien”, Journal de l’Antiquité (1903), pp. 487–507;
Idem, “Des quelques évangéliaires arméniens accentués”,
Mémoires orientaux publiés par l’École des langues orientales,
(1905), pp. 133–168. 101
 Despite a correspondence that gives us a glimpse –, the Symbolist poet André-Ferdinand Hérold
of a Meillet who was sometimes indifferent to the (1865–1940), as well as the famous historian and
threats facing the Armenian people, he under- numismatist Gustave Schlumberger (1844–1929).
stood the extent of the persecutions and became This committee was completed by two funda-
fully committed to the Armenian cause24. In 1904 mental figures for the development of art his-
already, he professed a short speech published tory in France: on the one hand, Gabriel Millet
in the Manifestations Franco-Anglo-Italiennes pour (1867–1953), eminent archaeologist and professor
l’Arménie et la Macédoine, prefaced by Bérard and at the Collège de France, and on the other hand
introduced by Quillard25. Following the events of Charles Diehl (1859–1944), specialist in Byzantine
April-August 1915, Meillet published, first anony- studies. In 1920, the society created a journal, the
mously, articles on “The Extermination of the Ar- Revue des études arméniennes [Fig. 3], which served
menians” and then on the “Armenian Massacres”, as a publication organ until it was discontinued
denouncing in particular the role of the German in 1933. Founded the same year as Syria, which
authorities in allowing the massacres to take place. focused on “oriental” art and archeology, this
In these texts, Meillet displays an anti-Germanic scholarly journal aimed to become an interna-
sentiment that is unsurprising in the context of the tional platform in a European language accessible
First World War26. Then, on April 9, 1916, he pro- to a scholarly public specifically focused on Ar-
nounced a speech during an homage to Armenia menian culture writ large. The introduction to the
in the big auditorium of the Sorbonne, and again first volume also reveals a two-toned perspective
on February 28, 1919 with a speech for a demon- that will remain ubiquitous in subsequent studies.
stration organized by the Armenian intellectual We read there:
Union of Paris. In the latter, it is the cultural contri- “Without doubt, Armenia has never been, at any mo-
butions of Armenia to world culture that justify its ment of history, the center of a great and original civ-
importance and its place in the theater of nations: ilization. Its geographical situation and the historical
events which resulted from it have never allowed it
“You are certainly surprised to see a simple professor to largely radiate.
open an assembly composed of so many qualified, so
many eminent men. If I agreed to chair the assembly But, besides the fact that her external action was non
under these conditions, it was because the organizers negligeable – Georgia was largely subject to the in-
asked me to do so, and I understood their idea. Their fluence of Armenia, and we know which importance
thought was that the Armenian cause needed neither M. Strzygowski attributes to Armenian architecture
politics nor eloquence. They asked a scholar to chair – the Armenian evidence is of great value to help to
this meeting because the simple truth is enough, the know neighboring civilizations. Placed at the meeting
unadorned truth, the unmediated truth, and that is point of different nations, the Armenian people were
why I am here. […] Armenians are not a very big na- subject to the action of distinct civilizations, alternate-
tion, but they are a very old nation, we know that from ly and often at the same time. The data provided by
history […] Anyone who knows Armenian literature, Armenian evidence can thus enlighten facts pertinent
anyone who knows these ancient works, knows that to Iranian, Greek, Syriac, Ancient French, Arab, Turk,
Armenians are a nation, a nation that exists”27. etc. phenomena.

The new journal […] would like to serve as a center to

This subject, the place of the Armenian nation,
frequently occupied Meillet28. That same year,
1919, Meillet co-founded, with another well-
known linguist and philarmenian, Frédéric
Macler (1868–1938), an organization dedicated
exclusively to the study of Armenian culture:
the Société des études arméniennes. Conceived from
the outset as an “interdisciplinary” endeavor, the
founding committee of the society, in addition to
the linguists Meillet and Macler, brought together
102 the politician Bérard – also an eminent Hellenist
Armenian studies for Western scholars.
It comes at its hour, at a time when, after unheard-of
sufferings, the Armenian people takes back its place
in the council of Nations”29.
Quite strikingly, Armenia is presented as never
having possessed an “original” culture, but rather
as a particularly fertile crossroads. Ancient Arme-
nia was here considered not only a crossroads of
different linguistic realities, but also of literary and
visual cultures, an idea which maintained a fertile
reception to this day30. For Meillet, this perspective
is obvious: the major interest of ancient Armenian

24 See Meillet en Arménie (n. 22) and Antoine Meillet, Lettres de

Tiflis et d’Arménie, Martiros Minassian ed., Vienne 1987.
25 Manifestations Franco-Anglo-Italiennes. Pour l’Arménie et la
Macédoine, preface by Victor Bérard, introduction by Pierre
Quillard, Paris 1904, p. 224.
26 Anonymous [Antoine Meillet], “L’extermination des Armé-
niens”, Bulletin de l’Alliance française, xxv (1915), pp. 109–111;
Idem, “Les massacres d’Arménie”, Bulletin de l’Alliance fran-
çaise, xxxiii (2016), pp. 47–48. See Sébastien Moret, “Antoine
Meillet et les massacres d’Arménie de 1915”, History and
Philosophy of the Language Sciences, (2015) [online: https://
hiphilangsci.net/2015/11/30/antoine-meillet-et-les-massacres-
darmenie-de-1915, last accessed 4.11.2022]. Meillet is not
the only one to have such anti-Germanic feelings in these
years, see, e.g., Eugène Griselle, Une victime du pangermanisme.
L’arménie martyre, Paris 1916. On the role of Germany, see
Jürgen Gottschlich, Beihilfe zum Völkermord. Deutschlands Rolle
bei der Vernichtung der Armenier, Berlin 2015 and Stefan Ihrig,
Justifying Genocide. Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck
to Hitler, Cambridge, ma / London 2016.
27 “Vous êtes sans doute un peu surpris de voir un simple professeur
ouvrir une assemblée où figurent tant d’hommes qualifiés, tant
d’hommes éminents. Si j’ai accepté de présider l’assemblée dans
ces conditions, c’est que les organisateurs me l’ont demandé, et
j’ai compris qu’ils avaient leur idée. Leur pensée, c’est que la
cause arménienne n’a besoin ni de politique, ni d’éloquence. On
a demandé à un savant de présider cette réunion parce que la
vérité toute simple y suffit, la vérité sans ornement, la vérité
sans adresse, et voilà pourquoi je suis ici. […] Les Arméniens
ne sont pas une très grande nation, mais ils sont une très vieille
nation, nous le savons par l’Histoire […] Quiconque connaît la
littérature arménienne, quiconque connaît ces oeuvres antiques,
sait que les Arméniens sont une nation, une nation qui existe”,
“Discours de M. A. Meillet”, in Pour la libération de l’Arménie,
Paris 1920, pp. 9–13.
28 See, e.g., Antoine Meillet, “La nation arménienne”, supple-
ment to Bulletin de l’Alliance française, lxxix (March 1918),
pp. 1–4; Idem, La nation arménienne, Paris 1919; Idem, La ques-
tion arménienne et ses conséquences pour l’avenir international,
Paris 1919.
29 “Sans doute, l’Arménie n’a été à aucun moment de l’histoire le
centre d’une grande civilisation originale. Sa situation géogra-
phique et les évènements historiques qui en sont résultés ne lui
ont jamais permis de rayonner largement au dehors.
Mais outre que son action extérieure n’a pas été négligeable – la
Géorgie a largement subi l’influence de l’Arménie et l’on sait quelle
importance M. Strzygowski attribue à l’architecture arménienne, –
les données arméniennes sont de grand prix pour aider à connaître
les civilisations voisines. 3 / Cover of the first issue of the Revue
Placé au point de rencontre de plusieurs nations différentes, le des études arméniennes, 1920
peuple arménien a subi l’action de civilisations distinctes, tour
à tour et souvent à la fois. Les données fournies par les faits ar-
méniens peuvent donc éclairer des faits iraniens, grecs, syriaques,
français anciens, arabes, turcs, etc.
La nouvelle revue […] voudrait servir de centre aux études armé-
niennes chez les savants occidentaux.
Elle vient à son heure, en un temps où, après des souffrances inouïes,
le peuple arménien reprend sa place dans le conseil des Nations”,
from Frédéric Macler, Antoine Meillet,“Avertissement”, Revue
des études arméniennes, i/1 (1920), pp. 1–2.
30 E.g. Christiane Esche-Ramshorn, East-West Artistic Transfer
through Rome, Armenia and the Silk Road: Sharing St. Peter’s,
London / New York 2022. 103
4 / Charles Diehl lies in the etymological comparisons with Parthian
at his desk or Greek and the way in which these comparisons
can enlighten the study of the roots of Indo-Euro-
pean languages31. Thus, Armenia and Armenian
were decentralized and viewed as a conduit, rather
than a creative force.
But the journal was also intended to be an
ideal disciplinary crossroads. The first volume of
the journal, published in four semi-annual issues
from 1920 to 1921, contains a wide variety of stud-
ies from the most varied disciplines: numismatics,
linguistics, comparative grammar, study of man-
uscripts, history, history of art, but also columns
dedicated to current events. Meillet writes about
the Armenian state, Macler about the new Arme-
nian artistic union, and there are also columns
about the military and humanitarian situation.
The introduction to the first volume also men-
tions the studies of Josef Strzygowski (1862–1941),
who, with the publication of his considerable study
Die Baukunst der Armenier und Europa in 1918, had
marked a milestone in Armenian studies32. It is
thus not surprising that in the third issue of the
first volume of the Revue, published in 1921, there
is a particularly revealing reaction to Strzygows-
104 ki’s work by one of the most important Byzantine
scholars of the early twentieth century in France:
Charles Diehl.
A Byzantinist’s view on Late Antique Armenia
Charles Diehl [Fig. 4], was one of the founding
members of the Société des études arméniennes, and,
along with the younger Millet, the authority in
the field of Byzantine studies in France in the
1920s33. Archaeologist, historian and art historian,
Diehl had published important works on Byzan-
tine art, including his Manuel d’art byzantin, des-
tined to a long reception (1910) or his historical
synthesis Byzance: Grandeur et décadence (1919)34.
Diehl had already, at the beginning of the twenti-
eth century, taken part in the great debate on the
origins of Byzantine art, opposing the partisans
of a “Roman” origin in favor of those advocating
an “Oriental” origin. Thus Diehl leaned resolutely
towards the Hellenistic Orient, which was for him
the receptacle of the ancient Orient’s creative en-
ergies. With a dynamic response, he then decided
that the conclusions of the Austrian researcher,
Strzygowski, and in particular his Orient oder Rom
(1901) and above all to Kleinasien, ein Neuland der
Kunstgeschichte (1903), had to be nuanced35. In his
“Origines asiatiques de l’art byzantin” published
in 1904, Diehl thus highlighted the role played by
regions other than Asia Minor, including Syria and
Egypt, in the formation of “Byzantine” art36. But of
primary importance for Diehl was the role played
by Constantinople as the actual “crossroads” of
the various “oriental” artistic contributions that
combined with the “Hellenistic” tradition.
It is from such a perspective that in 1921, in
the Revue des études arméniennes, Diehl examined
Armenian architecture in the sixth and seventh
centuries37. A year earlier, Diehl had signed the
preface to the catalog of the exhibition held in
April 1920 at the Pavillon de Marsan – “L’art mon-
umental en Arménie: aquarelles et relevés d’après
les édifices du vie au xiiie siècle” – which brought
together a series of watercolors by the Armenian
artist Aršak Fetvadjian (1866–1947)38. Fetvadjian
had also participated in the excavations of Niko-
laj Marr (1865–1934) in Ani at the beginning of
the twentieth century, providing valuable col-
or illustrations of the monuments of the ancient
capital. Some of these now famous watercolors
reproduce lost monuments, such as the basilica
of Tekor [Fig. 5], heavily damaged in 1912, which
were used by Diehl as illustrative documents
to present these still little-known monuments39. 5 / Aršak
In the preface to the exhibition catalog, Diehl Fetvadjian,
St Sergius church,
Tekor, watercolor,
31 De Lamberterie, “Meillet et l’Arménien” (n. 22). ca 1905
32 Josef Strzygowski, Die Baukunst des Armenier und Europa, 2 vols,
Vienna 1918. See Christina Maranci, “The historiography of Ar-
menian architecture: Josef Strzygowski, Austria, and Armenia”,
Revue des études arméniennes, xxviii (2001/2002), pp. 287–307; Ea-
dem, “Basilicas and black holes: the legacy of Josef Strzygowski
and the case of Armenian architecture”, Acta historiae atrium
Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, xlvii (2006), pp. 313–320.
33 Judith Soria, Jean-Michel Spieser,“Charles Diehl”, in Diction-
naire critique des historiens de l’art actifs en France de la Révolu-
tion à la Première Guerre mondiale, Philipp. Sénéchal, Claire
Barbillon eds, [Online: https://www.inha.fr/fr/ressources/
publications/publications-numeriques/dictionnaire-critique-
des-historiens-de-l-art/diehl-charles, last accessed 4.11.22,
last updated 10.01.2014].
34 Charles Diehl, Manuel d’art byzantin, Paris 1910, rev. ed., 2 vols,
Paris 1925–1926; Idem, Byzance: Grandeur et décadence, Paris 1919.
35 Josef Strzygowski, Orient oder Rom: Beiträge zur Geschichte
der spätantiken und frühchristlichen Kunst, Leipzig 1901; Idem,
Kleinasien, ein Neuland der Kunstgeschichte, Leipzig 1903.
36 Charles Diehl, “Les origines asiatiques de l’art byzantin”,
Journal des Savants, n.s. ii (1904), pp. 239–251, republished
in Études byzantines, Paris 1905, pp. 337–352.
37 Idem, “L’architecture arménienne aux vie et viie siècles”,
Revue des études arméniennes, i/3 (1921), pp. 221–231.
38 Idem, “Préface”, in L’Art monumental en Arménie: aquarelles et
relevés d’après les édifices du vie au xiiie siècle, (exhibition cata-
logue, Paris, Musée des Arts décoratifs, Pavillon de Marsan,
April 1920), Paris 1920.
39 These illustrations are also used by Frédéric Macler, “L’ar-
chitecture arménienne dans ses rapports avec l’art syrien”,
Syria, i/4 (1920), pp. 253–263. 105
6 / Aršak already clearly states the place he gives to Arme-
Fetvadjian, nian architecture, coming back to the question
Ereruyk‘ basilica,
of “crossroads”: “Armenia was from the outset
watercolor,
ca 1905 between Byzantium and the East an object of
struggle, a point of contact, and a region where
two opposing civilizations met and combined”,
while also a regional art with a “genius of its own,
original and creative”40.
This position is nuanced in the 1921 article,
which returns to the position of Strzygowski.
Diehl distinguishes two phases in the extant
buildings of Armenia: on the one hand, the sev-
enth century – which corresponds to what would
be later named the “golden age” of Armenian
architecture – and which was, for Diehl, “the time
when the slow evolution which was accomplished
during the fifth and sixth centuries is completed”
and simultaneously the moment of an “admirable
blossoming of monuments”41. Secondly he distin-
guished the time of the Bagratids, notably with
the monuments of Ani in the tenth and eleventh
centuries. Nuancing Strzygowski’s statements,
Diehl relied in particular on the monuments of
the late antique period, noting especially the sim-
ilarities that the basilicas of Ereruyk‘ [Fig. 6] and
Tekor offer with monuments of Northern Syria,
such as the basilicas of Qalb Loze or Turmanin
[Figs 7–8]. These monuments, which also served as
comparisons in Macler’s above-mentioned article,
had been made accessible to French scholars chief-
ly by Count Melchior de Vogüé (1829–1916), who
106 published a vast study on the civil and religious
architecture of ancient and late antique Syria in
1865–187742. De Vogüé had already indicated in
the introduction to his work the considerable part
given to Eastern contributions to the Western
Middle Ages. The rediscovery of Syrian build-
ings had in fact immediately provoked a lively
discussion on the origins of Romanesque art in
the West, a discussion that would also extend
to the buildings found in Armenia and Georgia.
While we will return to this subject, it is import-
ant to note that Diehl used the argument of the
relationship with Syrian art as a way of nuancing
the creative role of Armenian art in the sixth cen-
tury, especially in order to qualify Strzygowski’s
statements:
“And if thus, in Armenian art of the sixth century, we
can find so many similitudes with coeval Syrian art, if
we can notice the same Hellenistic influence combined
with oriental inputs, we will be justified to conclude
that, in the most ancient monuments of Armenian art,
there is without doubt less originality and novelty than
affirmed by Strzygowski”43.
40 Charles Diehl, “Préface” (n. 38).
41 “C’est d’une part le viie siècle, le temps où s’achève la lente évolu-
tion qui s’accomplit au cours du ve et vie siècle, et de cette évolution
le résultat se manifeste en une admirable floraison de monuments”,
Diehl, “L’architecture arménienne” (n. 37), p. 224.
42 Melchior de Vogüé, Syrie centrale. Architecture civile et reli-
gieuse. Du ier au viie siècle, 2 vols, Paris 1865–1877.
43 “Et si donc, dans l’art arménien du vie siècle, on rencontre tant de
ressemblance avec l’art syrien du même temps, si l’on y constate
la même influence hellénistique se combinant avec des apports
orientaux, on sera fondé à conclure que, dans les ouvrages les plus
anciens qui nous restent de l’art arménien, il y a moins d’origina-
lité sans doute et nouveauté que ne l’affirme Strzygowski”, Diehl,
“L’architecture arménienne” (n. 37), p. 226.
7 / Basilica at Qalb Loze, from
Melchior de Vogüé, Syrie
centrale, vol. ii, Paris 1877, pl. 123

8 / Basilica at Turmanin, from

Systematischer Bilder-Atlas
zum Conversations-Lexikon,
Ikonographische Encyklopaedie
der Wissenschaften und Kuenste,
Architektur, vol. 5, Leipzig 1875 107
107
 For the seventh century, where Diehl notes the
predominance of the dome, the same comment
applies when he wonders if there is indeed, “in
these buildings something original that belongs
to Armenia?”44. Here again, Diehl’s conclusion
is unambiguous: yes, Armenian art employs the
dome with ingenuity, but these procedures al-
ready existed both in the ancient East in Egypt
and Asia Minor, and also in Constantinople at the
same time. To assert the clear primacy of Byzan-
tium, Diehl turned to the case of Zvart‘nots‘, the
once imposing structure on the road from Erevan
to Ējmiatsin:
“Undoubtedly, in some of these motifs, one can see
indigenous elements mingling with foreign ones, and
the Old East combining with Byzantium. Nevertheless,
it is certain that the Byzantine influence is evident in
this decoration and that the Zvart‘nots‘ capitals are by
no means, as Strzygowski claims, an isolated example
in seventh-century Armenia”45.
It is important to note that Diehl’s reaction, ini-
tially less critical in 1904, also changed with the
development, between 1891 and 1918, of Strzy-
gowski’s position towards Armenian architecture.
Indeed, in his work on the Gospel of Ējmiatsin,
Strzygowski discussed the Zvart‘nots‘ capitals
as a variation of the Justinianic capital46. In his
Baukunst, however, Strzygowski attributes a much
greater originality to Zvart‘nots‘, which becomes
one of the buildings expressing the genius of
Armenian architecture47. This reversal can prob-
ably be explained by the more intimate knowl-
edge of the monuments acquired by Stzrygowksi
during the years between Etschmiadzin-Evangeliar
and the Baukunst, but it is also necessary to re-
call a well-known and not insignificant fact: the
study on the manuscript had been financed with
the help of the Russian philanthropist and dip-
lomat Aleksandr Ivanovich Nelidov (1835–1910)48.
Strzygowski’s comparisons between Armenian
and Byzantine materials thus also seem to follow
the Russian policy of those years, which saw Ar-
menia as a “province” of Byzantine art49. Diehl’s
explanation of the predominance of Byzantine
elements in Zvart‘nots‘ and in the Armenian ar-
chitecture of the sixth to seventh centuries is also
linked to the “political and artistic dependence
108 of Armenia on Byzantium” which weakens, if
not nullifies “the thesis that attributes so much
creative originality to the Armenian art of the sev-
enth century” 50. For Diehl, Armenia should not be
considered as the unique cradle of early Christian
or Byzantine art, but as a simple stage, a platform
similar to the mixing between ancient Eastern
traditions and Hellenistic elements that that was
attributed to art between Syria or Asia Minor51.
For Diehl, in its late antique period – extending
to the seventh century – Armenia owed a great
deal to Byzantium and:
“one must admit that, in its origins [Armenian art] does
not present any significant enough traits so that we
may flatter ourselves, following Strzygowski, to have
found in Armenia the ‘solid ground’ on which to build
the history of the formation of Eastern Christian art
[…] And however interesting Armenian art of the sev-
enth century appears, it is only, through the Byzantine
influence it endures, a province of Byzantine art”52.
One finds, as in the Russian perspective, the idea
of Armenia as a “province” of the great Byzan-
tine Empire. It is only in the tenth and eleventh
centuries that Diehl admitted more originality
to Armenian art, but this time only because of
contact with the Arab world. In this transitional
movement between the centuries of Late Antiq-
uity and those of the Middle Ages, Diehl finally
points to a last question, which I have already
touched upon twice: that of the kinship between
Caucasian art and Western Romanesque art. It
is a subject that, as I said above, finds its origins
in the mid-nineteenth century in European trav-
elers’ writing and that gradually crystallized
within French historiography, in search of the
origins of a national art: the “Romanesque”. In
most cases, however, the comparisons are made
in favor of the “West”, and Diehl himself, albeit
being a Byzantinist, asserts that although these
comparisons are interesting, the study of Ro-
manesque national monuments is of far great-
er importance53. Diehl was, of course, not the
only one in these years to think this way, but it is
even more thought-provoking to note that a com-
parative perspective, this time led by a formal-
ist school of art history, would recover these
ideas a few years later, with a particularly active
exponent: the young Lithuanian art historian
Jurgis Baltrušaitis.
 Jurgis Baltrušaitis: old ideas in a new light

Jurgis Baltrušaitis (1903–1988) [Fig. 9] is one of the

most innovative interpreters of the arts of the
Caucasus in the first half of the twentieth centu-
ry54. He was born in Moscow to a family of the
Lithuanian cultural elite (he was privately tutored
by Boris Pasternak), but he mainly identified as
French by language of expression. His biography
explains, no doubt, his interest in transcultural
phenomena, especially in the relationship be-
tween the West and the East of Europe, between
the extended Russian-speaking world, whose
transformation he experienced, and the French

44 “Un trait commun frapp. dans tous ces monuments: c’est la place
prédominante qu’y occupe la coupole. Mais cela dit, la question es-
sentielle demeure: y-a-t-il dans ces édifices quelque chose d’original
qui appartienne en propre à l’Arménie?”, Diehl, “L’architecture
arménienne” (n. 37), p. 227.
45 “Assurément, dans tel ou tel de ces motifs, on peut saisir des
éléments indigènes se mêlant aux éléments étrangers, et le vieil
Orient se combinant avec Byzance. Il n’en demeure pas moins
certain que l’influence byzantine se marque nettement dans cette
décoration et que les chapiteaux de Zouarthnotz ne sont nullement,
comme le veut Strzygowski, un exemple isolé dans l’Arménie du
viie siècle”, Diehl, “L’architecture arménienne” (n. 37), p. 229.
46 Josef Strzygowski, Das Etschmiadzin-Evangeliar. Beiträge zur
Geschichte der armenischen, ravennatischen und syro-ägyptischen
Kunst, Vienna 1891, p. 10.
47 Strzygowski, Die Baukunst der Armenier (n. 32); Christina
Maranci, “The Monument and the World. Zvart‘nots and
the Problem of Origins”, Convivium Supplementum (2016),
pp. 70 –87, sp. pp. 73–76; Eadem, Medieval Armenian Ar-
chitecture: Constructions of Race and Nation, Leuven 2001,
sp. pp. 85–175.
48 Gohar Grigoryan,“‘The Heritage of Ancestors’. Early Studies
on Armenian Manuscripts and Miniature Painting”, Venezia
Arti, xxvii (2018), pp. 81–102, sp. p. 87.
49 For the Russian perspective on the region in the nineteenth
century, see, e.g., Ivan Foletti, “The Russian View of a ‘Pe-
ripheral’ Region. Nikodim P. Kondakov and the Southern
Caucasus”, Convivium Supplementum (2016), pp. 20–35; Idem,
“From Russia with Love. The First Russian Studies on the Art
of Southern Caucasus”, Venezia Arti, xxvii (2018), pp. 15–33.
50 Diehl, “L’architecture arménienne” (n. 37), p. 229
51 Ibidem, p. 230.
52 “[…] il faut avouer que, dans ses origines, il [l’art arménien] ne
présente aucun trait assez significatif pour que l’on puisse, à la
suite de Strzygowski, se flatter de trouver enfin en Arménie ‘le
terrain solide’ sur lequel on édifiera l’histoire de la formation de
9 / Jurgis Baltrušaitis at
l’art chrétien d’Orient […] Et si intéressant qu’apparaisse l’art
Julfa, ca 1927–1928
arménien du viie siècle, il n’est alors, par l’influence byzantine qu’il
subit, qu’une province de l’art byzantin”, Diehl, “L’architecture
arménienne” (n. 37), p. 231.
53 Ibidem, p. 231.
54 Jean-François Chevrier, Portrait de Jurgis Baltrušaitis. Art sumérien,
art roman, Paris 1989; Odeta Žukauskienė, “Jurgis Baltrušaitis:
Cross-cultural biography and cross-cultural art history”, in
History of art history in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe,
Jerzy Malinowski ed., Toruń 2012, vol. 2, pp. 27–34. 109

10 / Title page of Jurgis Baltrušaitis,
Études sur l’art médiéval en
Géorgie et en Arménie, Paris 1929
110
intellectual tradition55. Baltrušaitis remains a well-
known figure above all for his post-war studies on
the fantastic Middle Ages and anamorphosis, or
the mirror in the arts. Apart from a few scattered
publications, from which I highlight two articles,
one by Patrick Donabédian on Baltrušaitis and
the art of the South Caucasus, and one by Beatrice
Spampinato on morphological thought applied
to materials from ancient Iran and the Caucasus,
his studies of Armenia and the Caucasus remain
under recognized today56.
In the long term, however, Baltrušaitis later
studies appear as the culmination of an important
intellectual curiosity and a method that developed
as a result of his formative years in Paris, after his
meeting with Henri Focillon (1881–1943). Father
of the new school of French formalism, Focillon
had directed the young student both towards the
study of Romanesque monuments, with a com-
parative perspective between architecture and
forms of the East in the broad sense of the term
and that of the West, and towards a very complex
method of morphological study wherein the mark
of Focillon’s tutelage is palpable57. This method
was developed by Baltrušaitis in two works which
deal directly with the Caucasus, and which are
the indirect heirs of those studies on Armenian
art that developed in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. These are his Études sur l’art
médiéval en Géorgie et en Arménie (1929) and later
the Problème de l’ogive et l’Arménie (1936)58. I will
concentrate mainly on the first piece, which is
more interesting for the subject developed here
[Fig. 10]. First it is necessary to briefly recall that
the rich material on which the two studies are
based, and in particular a vast photographic doc-
umentation, had been gathered during two trips,
in 1927 and 1928, to Armenia and Georgia. The
trips to these two young socialist republics were
facilitated by Baltrušaitis’ father, then Russian
ambassador to Lithuania. Particularly poignant
are the photographs that the young art historian
brought back of the Julfa cemetery, but also of a se-
ries of other monuments and details that illustrate
the sharp comparisons made by the art historian.
As Focillon reminds us in the preface of his
1929 book, Baltrušaitis applied his methods from
the point of view of a “Romanist”, with a clear
goal: to understand the origins of Western Ro-
manesque art by searching for some of the sources,
inspirations, archaic forms and themes common
to the distant East and to Western monuments.
This investigation develops along different axes,
from ornamentation (interlacing and geomet-
ric ornamentation) to figurative sculpture and
architecture and architectural decoration. One
thus finds in Baltrušaitis an attentiveness for the
geometrization of the forms in the art of the Cau-
casus, with a particular interest in these “sculptor
geometers” and the way in which the stone was
worked so as to transcend its materiality by using
the “fragmentation and to the analytic decom-
position of some rudimentary forms”59 [Fig. 11].
Moreover, this creative investigation brought to
light comparisons that are sometimes curious
and sometimes genuinely disconcerting in their
immediacy. For example, Baltrušaitis recognizes
the presence of similar motives – for example the
famous theme of “confronted animals”, where two
animals face each other in a symmetrical pose, or
the “master of animals”, a theme in which a human
figure is placed between two confronted animals –
over a very long period of time and over very wide
geographical areas. He sees, in their integration
into the repertoire of forms present in Georgia
and Armenia, a link between the art of ancient
Mesopotamia and Romanesque art. These motifs
would have been brought not only by the presence
of numerous communities from the Caucasus in
Europe, but also by the migration of these im-
ages on transportable supports, ceramics, fab-
11 / Detail of a khachk‘ar from
rics, manuscripts. This is not only a particularly Haghpat Monastery, from Baltrušaitis,
widespread philological thought found among In- Études sur l’art médiéval, pl. xvii
do-Europeanists such as Dumézil and closely tied

55 Žukauskienė, “Jurgis Baltrušaitis” (n. 54).

56 Patrick Donabédian, “Jurgis Baltrušaitis et la découverte de
l’art chrétien de Transcaucasie”, Cahiers Lituaniens, iv (2003),
pp. 34–42; Beatrice Spampinato, “Baltrušaitis e la leggenda della
forma di Gilgamesh”, in Testo e immagine. Un dialogo dall’antichità
al contemporaneo, Maria Redaelli, Beatrice Spampinato, Alexan-
dra Timorina eds, Venice 2019, pp. 133–149. For Baltrušaitis’
method, see, e.g., Maddalena Mazzocut-Mis, Deformazioni fan-
tastiche: introduzione all’estetica di Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Milan 1999.
57 Annamaria Ducci, Henri Focillon en son temps: la liberté des
formes, Strasbourg 2021.
58 Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Études sur l’art médiéval en Géorgie et en
Arménie, preface by Henri Focillon, Paris 1929; Idem, Le pro-
blème de l’ogive et l’Arménie, Paris 1936.
59 Baltrušaitis, Études sur l’art médiéval (n. 58), pp. 18 –19. 111
 to questions of race, but also and above all a trium-
phant affirmation of the primacy of form60. These
ideas are found in later works such as Art sumérien,
art roman (1934), in which chapter vi is dedicated
to the role of Transcaucasia in his considerations
on the survival of the epic Gilgamesh61, but also
in his Moyen Âge fantastique, so impregnated by
the notion of “survivance”62.
In his search for plastic and ornamental formu-
las, some comparisons seem particularly import-
ant. There is a striking plate in his 1929 work which
compares the figures placed in the squinches of
the dome of the cathedral of Kumurdo in Georgia,
built in the tenth century, and those of the Abbey
of Sainte-Foy in Conques, dating from the begin-
ning of the twelfth century [Fig. 12]63. According to
Baltrušaitis, this composition of the single figure
inscribed in a frame is directly inherited from
the ancient East and would systematically lead
to its progressive deformation and towards the
abstract, since the figure is modeled as if chained
to its geometric frame, bound to its symmetry64.
Such considerations must necessarily be placed in
the context of the 1920s, and we must recall that
both Focillon and especially Baltrušaitis (already
in Moscow) were in contact with the avant-garde
circles where an interest in structure, composition,
form and antinaturalism were omnipresent. The
comparison between Conques and Kumurdo is
troubling for, even as with Malraux a few years
later, the black and white photographs also al-
low the mitigation of spatiality and differences
in proportions. Of course, in a broader frame, the
question of the relationship between for example
oriental movable artifacts and the Western Middle
Ages had been studied by generations of scholars
such as Louis Courajod (1841–1896) or later Jean
Joseph Marquet de Vasselot (1871–1946). But in
this case, it is fascinating to notice also that the
example of Kumurdo is precisely one of those
which was already summoned in the nineteenth
century, following the impulse of Brosset, by
Jules Quicherat65. The ideas that develop under
Quicherat’s pen can be seen as the basis of Bal-
trušaitis’ considerations some fifty years later:
“Does the idea of the new [Romanesque] architecture
belong to Western Europe, or does it not come rather
112 from the East, a region where the practice of vaulting
was well known and where all the properties of this
type of construction were known? […] For the churches
of Kumurdo, Mokvi and Ani, we have dates which
correspond to our years 964, 965, 1010; but what is
especially surprising, it is that by their architectural
characters, these same churches belong in France, the
first two, to the eleventh century and that of Ani, to
the advanced twelfth century. It would seem, therefore,
that our Romanesque architecture not only originated
in Armenia, but that it went through the same phases
as in France, and this with a good century’s advance
on Europe. Before coming to this conclusion, it would
be good to wait until the investigation has been carried
out more thoroughly”66.
This position of Quicherat, singular in the second
half of the nineteenth century, must be reconsidered
as the basis of Baltrušaitis’ studies, and certainly on
the suggestions of Focillon. But in Baltrušaitis, the
investigation desired by Quicherat, as we have seen,
develops within the frame of a particular idea: that
of understanding the relationship between a Euro-
pean, and specifically French, art, “Romanesque”
art, and the preliminary experiences that formed it.
The motivating interest was thus especially for the
genesis of forms, for the sources of a western art,
often presenting aesthetic considerations extracted
from their local historical context. With Baltrušaitis’
studies, we move away from a discussion focused
on the origins of Christian art and from Late An-
tiquity to search, instead, for the elusive traces of
the migration of forms from one medieval world
to another. Baltrušaitis thought, from the Études
sur l’art médiéval en Géorgie to La stylistique orna-
mentale dans la sculpture romane (1931) and to Art
sumérien, art roman must be seen as the outcome
of studies which started in the second half of the
nineteenth century on a philological basis, devel-
oped into a specific context accompanied by the
profoundly traumatic events of the early twentieth
century, and responded to a transformation toward
apolitical “objectivity” and formalism of the dis-
cipline of art history during the Interwar period.
Conclusion
First through the tradition of erudite travelers,
then through politico-scholarly engagement,
and finally by mobilizing Armenian art and cul-
ture as a mirror to understand the formation of
Western French artforms, the grains of the mech-
anisms through which the arts and architecture
of Armenia entered both directly and tangentially
into French historiography have become inter-
linked to form a sketch of the arrested potential
of this moment. The attitude of French scholars
oscillating and gradually moving from concerned
philarmenism to scholarly distance is a reminder
that the study of the material culture of Armenia
– and more broadly of the Southern Caucasus and
of regions remote to each individual scholar’s
60 There is no space here to enter the debate on Indo-European
and Indo-Germanic studies as a broader issue in the develop-
ment of modern art historical agendas. For some elements of
reflection, albeit not focused on art history and with contro-
versial reception, see Jean-Paul Demoule, Mais où sont passés
les Indo-Européens? Le mythe d’origine de l’Occident, Paris 2014.
See also the considerations on race and modern art history in
the crucial: Éric Michaud, The barbarian invasions: a genealogy
of the history of art, Cambridge, ma / London 2019 [2015].
61 Spampinato, “Baltrušaitis e la leggenda” (n. 56). 12 / Plate with
62 Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Le Moyen Âge fantastique: antiquités et comparison of
exotisme dans l’art gothique, Paris 1955. the figures in
63 Baltrušaitis, Études sur l’art médiéval (n. 58), p. 60. the squinches
64 Ibidem, pp. 59–61. On the question of geometry, see Donabéd-
at Kumurdo
ian, “Jurgis Baltrušaitis et la découverte” (n. 56), pp. 37–38.
65 On the links between the rediscovery of Eastern Christian,
in Georgia
(10th century)
Byzantine, and Romanesque art, see Jean Nayrolles, L’in-
vention de l’art roman à l’époque moderne (xviiie–xixe siècles), and the Abbey
of Sainte-Foy
Rennes 2005, sp. pp. 281–311.
66 “L’idée de la nouvelle architecture [romane] appartient-elle en in Conques
propre à l’Europe occidentale, ou bien ne vient-elle pas plutôt de (12th century), from
l’Orient, région où l’on était rompu à la pratique des voûtes et Baltrušaitis, Études
où étaient connues toutes les propriétés de ce genre de construc- sur l’art médiéval,
tion? […] Pour les églises de Coumardo, Mokwi et Ani, nous pl. lxxxiii
avons des dates qui correspondent à nos années 964, 965, 1010;
mais ce qui est surtout surprenant, c’est que par leurs caractères
architectoniques, ces mêmes églises appartiennent en France,
les deux premières, au xie siècle et celle d’Ani, au xiie siècle
avancé. L’apparence serait donc que notre architecture romane
non seulement prît naissance en Arménie, mais qu’elle y passa
par les mêmes phases que chez nous, et cela avec un bon siècle
d’avance sur l’Europe. Avant de s’arrêter à cette conclusion, il
sera bon d’attendre que l’enquête ait été poussée plus à fond”,
in Jules Quicherat, Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire, t.ii,
pp. 432–433. 113
 cultural center – looped always back to broad-
er societal and political questions that impacted
subsequent studies. Being framed as a periph-
ery is inherently destructive to any region, and
subsequently to all the inhabitants of that area.
The creation of the Revue des études arméniennes in
1920 is, in this sense, emblematic of a productive
direction that stagnated with the hardening, stale
attitudes of “objectivity”that took hold of scholars
at the end of the decade. Lasting only until 1933,
the Revue des études arméniennes needed more than
thirty years to be revived. The few decades under
discussion in this study (1894–1920s) make a point
about the place and role of scholarship in general,
and of art history specifically. In the dreadful de-
cades which saw Asia Minor cleansed of four mil-
lion-odd Christians, the gaze of scholars, it seems,
became increasingly distant from issues related
to politics. Other and closer political struggles
and new nationalist attitudes in Europe became
more pressing. Gazing at Armenian art from the
“center”, the empire of Constantinople, like Diehl,
or looking beyond proscriptive borders towards
the life of forms like Baltrušaitis are important
and inspiring milestones in the formation of our
discipline. But methodological novelty should
not make us forget today that monuments, those
which are lost and those which are preserved, are
only ever occasions to speak about people, those
which are gone and those which remain67.

67 See Haut-Karabakh: le livre noir, Éric Denécé, Tigrane Yégavi-

an eds, Paris 2022.

114
summary
Od zoufalé solidarity
k nezaujatému pohledu
Proměny francouzského pohledu
na raně středověké arménské
umění (ca 1894–1929)
V období od hamídijských masakrů až po ar-
ménskou genocidu projevovali francouzští bada-
telé vcelku různorodé postoje k umělecké kultuře
středověké Arménie. Současně přitom významnou
měrou přispívali k rozvoji specializovaného oboru
jejího studia a zaujímali v něm důležité postavení.
Předkládaný článek zkoumá kořeny francouzské-
ho pohledu na raně středověké arménské umění
a tohoto rodícího se oboru arménských studií na
základě vědeckých studií publikovaných mezi
koncem devatenáctého století a období mezi svě-
tovými válkami.
Autor se přitom zaměřuje na tři klíčové mo-
menty a jejich hlavní představitele. Prvním z nich
je filolog Antoine Meillet (1866–1936), kterému se
autor věnuje v souvislosti se „znovuobjevením“
Arménie na konci devatenáctého století a prvními
vědeckými studiemi o historické Arménii ve Fran-
cii. Tyto rané studie vyústily po hamídijských ma-
sakrech a arménské genocidě v založení takzvané
Společnosti arménských studií (Société des Études
Arméniennes). Od posledních desetiletí devatenác-
tého století až do období po první světové válce se
studium arménských památek prolínalo s politic-
ky angažovaným armenofilstvím a humanitárními
závazky. Druhou studovanou osobností je historik
byzantského umění Charles Diehl (1859–1944), kte-
rý slouží jako barometr pro posouzení vědeckého
diskurzu o raně středověké Arménii ve dvacá-
tých letech dvacátého století. A konečně, na po-
zadí těchto dřívějších studií autor zkoumá práce
litevského historika umění Jurgise Baltrušaitise
(1873–1944), který po studiích v Paříži setrval ve
francouzském akademickém prostředí a publiko-
val ve francouzštině.
Tyto případové studie, které přeskakují dese-
tiletí a různé politické okolnosti, poukazují na
proměny francouzského pohledu na arménské
umění a kulturu na pozadí jedné z největších tra-
gédií dvacátého století a identifikují možné kořeny
některých dodnes obecně přijímaných postojů
k arménské vizuální kultuře. Současně ukazují,
jak postupná profesionalizace dějin umění na po-
čátku dvacátého století podnítila marginalizaci
studia arménského umění ve prospěch „objek-
tivních“ formalizujících přístupů.
115