Ariel Agemian

by John Gillepsie

One does not need to be a scholar to recognize that most truly great art is Christ-centered and that the most beautiful imagery has been biblical imagery. The glory of God continues to unfold, and true art serves to reflect that glory. So in the last century, the world was given at least one truly magnificent painter. His name was Ariel Agemian. He was an Armenian born in Turkey, who eventually lived and worked here in the United States. He was a well-educated man, trained in classical, academic art. During his life, Agemian produced a large body of religious art, most of it for the Roman Catholic Church. Probably his best known painting is the Shroud, considered the most exact representation of Christ, which Agemian painted using forensic imagery from the original Shroud of Turin.

If one is to look at Agemian’s faith-centered art, it can only be concluded that he was working at a high level of humility as the instrument of something far greater than earthly artistic vanity and ambition. What Agemian did was more than just a survival of the Old Masters’ technique. Agemian mastered his craft early in life, and produced paintings and drawings of a power and magnitude comparable to that of Michelangelo, Masaccio, and Titian.

Agemian’s accomplishments span a large part of the 20th century, from his student days in the 1920’s to his career as an American artist and teacher in the forties, fifties, and sixties. There are the paintings and the murals Agemian has done in schools and churches throughout Turkey, Italy, and France. Agemian executed hundreds of paintings and drawings during his years in the United States. There are paintings of his at Cambridge in Massachusetts. But possibly his most important works are in the four small books he illustrated for the Confraternity of the Precious Blood in Brooklyn, New York. The first of these is a book of the psalms. Each psalm is accompanied by one of Agemian’s illustrations. The second book is an illustrated version of Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ. The other two books are a personal guide to the Mass and a book of meditations on the Gospels.

Agemian was born in Brussa, Turkey in 1904. When he was eight-years-old, Agemian was separated from his parents due to the upheavals occurring in Turkey at the time. Agemian was sent to the Mekatariste Monastery in Venice, Italy. Later, Agemian would have to suffer through the death of his father in the Armenian massacre of 1915.

At the monastery, Agemian was given a religious education that the monks hoped would prepare him for the sacramental life if that were to be his calling. At this time, Agemian exhibited a talent for art. At about the age of sixteen, Agemian was presented with a choice by the brothers of the Makatariste Monastery. Caring first and foremost for the young man’s soul, they challenged Agemian that he would have to choose between loving art and loving God. But the two were not to come into conflict in Agemian’s life. Instead, Agemian decided that he would love God through his art. That decision defined the rest of his life on earth, and shaped the works of art he left behind for the rest of us. 

The education that Agemian gained through the Mekatariste monks enabled him to both attend and teach at the College Moorat Raphael and later at the Academy of Fine Arts, both in Venice. From 1929 to 1931 Agemian attended the University of Padua, near Venice. Agemian completed a doctorate in philosophy there at the age of twenty-seven. 

Agemian spent the next seven years of his life in Paris. He had a studio and taught art. He also taught at the University if Paris. Among the large body of work he produced at this time, probably the most notable are two large murals, one painted at the Armenian church in Arnoueville, just north of Paris, and another at the Mekatariste college where the artist had taught. 

Agemian’s art became secularized in the years from 1930 to 1938. The imagery was still biblical, but the emphasis of these paintings was more on political and historical themes, rather than on the mysterious and religious. Agemian remained, as always, highly idealistic. He continued to paint, finding his motivation in love of subject matter only. He would not sell his paintings, surviving instead on his teaching abilities. This secular phase was brief. Agemian eventually returned completely to Christ-centered art, but certain things had to happen in his life first. 

Towards the end of 1938, Agemian took about seventy-five of what he considered his best paintings and traveled to the United States. He had all the mastery of his craft. But other than technique, Agemian had little to distinguish himself from other young and idealistic artists of the time. 

Agemian’s first show in the United States was at the Nugent Gallery in New York in January of 1939. He was one of several artists given a critique in the New York Times. His art was received favorably, but it was praised for Agemian’s technical ability only. The content of his work was given short shrift.

Agemian had originally intended to visit the United States only temporarily. His plan was to study the American people and their democracy, then to execute a series of paintings on this country and its political history. Agemian planned to return home to Europe once this was done.

Despite these plans, Agemian’s return was repeatedly delayed. He had met the woman who was to be his wife, Maria Royas. She was from Italy and came to him as a student at the studio Agemian had begun in New York City in 1938. Agemian still planned to go back, but then in 1941 his son Stefan was born. That year Agemian made another attempt to go back, packing his belongings aboard a ship called Normandie that was bound for France. Before the ship could leave port, though, it was destroyed by a gas explosion. Agemian took this as an omen and remained in the United States. Two years later his daughter Annig was born in New York City. 

In 1944, Agemian moved his family to a house in Brooklyn, New York. It was at this time that Agemian met Monsignor Frey of the Confraternity of the Precious Blood, which has its monastery there, just a few miles from Agemian’s home. Monsignor Frey commissioned Agemian to illustrate a psalm book that the Confraternity was going to publish. Agemian did an illustration for each of the 150 psalms. The project took Agemian three years. It was the first time in history this has been done by a single artist. The illustrated Thomas à Kempis book came after that, then the other two books followed. 

The strength and balance of composition consistently make the drawings in these little books powerful and compelling. It is not enough for a work of art to make someone stop and look at it. What makes the work of Ariel Agemian great is the subject matter, Christ’s personal union with each and every individual person. Agemian’s religious paintings and the drawings done for the Confraternity do much more than just make a person stop and look. They have the power to pierce the senses of a jaded adult, and the power to take their place in the details of a child’s mind. His artwork moves the human heart, young and old, to pray.

John Gillepsie lives in College Park, Maryland with his wife and two children.