Walking Woman

In 1911 Sarian visited Egypt. The artist was inspired by this oriental country whose ancient culture interested him from his youth up. The outcome of the visit was the execution of his famous series of paintings. In this cycle a special place is given to the depiction of Egyptian women, among them ‘Walking Woman’ is the most distinguished. As art critic Alexander Kamensky picturesquely expressed himself, ‘the figure’s face is represented in such a generalized manner that it seems to be a kind of hieroglyphic symbol for the human face’.
The position in profile clearly correlates with Egyptian frescos. Everything is extremely compact in the flat two-dimensional composition. The contrast of blue, yellowish-brown and green hues creates the maximum stress of color correlations. All is generalized up to maximum and some elements acquire symbolic meaning: fruit piled on the tray is associated with Pyramid and the Egyptian’s figure reminds Sphinx. Sarian’s memoirs suggest that idea: ‘On leaving the Museum of Bulakh one could see in the streets the people who seemed to have been models for the sculptures in the museum… It was striking and at once a bit frightening.
As if they had been wandering right through millennia and reached this day together with the fine monuments created by their ancestors at the dawn of civilization’