That art has been, since the nation embraced Christianity in the fourth century of our era, chiefly ecclesiastical.
The latter gave the architectural style,.
Persian influences on the East, both before and after Persia had become Mohammedan, here met with the Roman influences spreading out from Constantinople.
As in primitive times it lay between Assyria on the one side and the Hittite power on the other, so after the appearance of Islam it became the frontier on which the East Roman Christian Empire contended with the Muslim Arab and Turkish monarchies.
Ever since it became Christian it was a territory fought for by diverse empires of diverse creeds.
One of the most interesting features in the history of Armenian art is that it displays in its successive stages the various influences to which the country has been subject.
Metal work, especially in silver and in copper, has always been a favourite vehicle for artistic design in the Near East and is so still, though like everything else it has suffered from the destruction, in repeated massacres, of many of the most highly skilled artificers.
There was little or no ecclesiastical sculpture, for the Armenian church discouraged the use of images, and fresco painting was not much used for the decoration of churches; missals, however, and other books of devotion and manuscripts of the Bible were illuminated with hand paintings, and adorned with miniatures; and much skill and taste were shown in embroideries.
Etchmiadzin, standing at the north foot of Mount Ararat, is the seat of the Katholikos, or ecclesiastical head of the whole Armenian church.
The finest examples of ancient Armenian architecture are to be seen in the ruins of Ani, on the border where Russian and Turkish territory meet, a city which was once the seat of one of the native dynasties, while the famous church of the monastery of Etchmiadzin, at Vagarshabad, near Erivan, is, though more modern, a perfect and beautiful existing representative of the old type.
That art has been, since the nation embraced Christianity in the fourth century of our era, chiefly ecclesiastical
