Grigor Khanjian, a brilliant book illustrator, painter, and tapestry designer, is well known in Armenia and throughout the European region. A series of illustrations for the novel Armenia's Wounds is an example of the artist's ability to associate his work with a particular genre. In The Ever-tolling Bell Tower by Sevak, he did cartoons for large-scale tapestries on such historical themes as Vardanank and Armenian Alphabet in an effort to dialogue with the mass viewer and to prove his ability to awaken various memories and emotions in the spectators.
Grigor Khanjian began as a genre painter. His canvases and first illustrations for books by Armenian writers and poets revealed the artist's bent personality for lyricism and his sharp eye for small detail. Already in his illustrations for Tumanian's poem Sako of Lori the master displayed temperament, expressiveness, and great skill in representing highly dramatic scenes in addition to a complete lack of shyness in rendering multifigured compositions filled with dynamism and tension. In the later years Khanjian used this style in executing themes of a different inner meaning: the history of Armenia becomes the main subject matter of his work. The concept of the history of his native people was forming gradually in the artist's mind gaining maturity and completeness with the passage of years. His interpretation of the historical theme became clear in his illustrations for Abovian's novel Armenia's Wounds, in his presentation of the tragic events described in the book, of the masses involved in those events and in his accentuation of the hero's figure leading his people. The Epic-of-Heroism theme is treated here along with the Self-Sacrifice motif. In the black-and-white sheets, the deeds and nature of Agasi, the principal hero of the novel, are presented with romantic inspiration. In the books design line Khanjian distinguished himself next by his illustrations for Sevak's poem The Ever-tolling Bell Tower. The illustrations brought to light another aspect of Armenia's history. The central figure of the poem is the composer Komitas; its main theme is the story of his life and death. Komitas shared with his people the tragedy of the 1915 massacre of the Armenian population in Turkey. The illustrations were inspired by and dealt with the facts of the composer's fate. As designed by Khanjian, the poem became a household name throughout Armenia. The artist treated the subject on a par with the author helping to retain in the reader's memory the vivid image of the hero and his own view on tragedy. The exhibition of Khanjian's cartoons for tapestries on the best-known events of national history became a landmark in Armenian's art life. The cartoons depicted the battle-scene of the 451 war waged by Prince Vardan Mamikonian with the Persians, and the invention of the Armenian alphabet by Mesrop Mashtots in the fifth century A.D. Khanjian executed the battle-scene with the sweep of a classical battle painting displaying a superb skill in brush and color handling. The cartoons left a profound impression upon the viewers. With happy strokes of his imagination, the artist placed Armenian warriors battling the enemy, while preserving the images of outstanding cultural figures of Armenia's history. Easily recognized by the spectators, they were honored and given their due credit. The implication was clear to the public - everybody who has contributed to his or her native culture is a combatant in the people's battle for its life, dignity and national identity. The response of the viewers to those cartoons was so enthusiastic that it was deemed necessary to reproduce them as frescoes in a special hall of a cultural center under construction in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. It is noteworthy that Khanjian owes the success of his book illustrations and of his cartoons - tapestries were made after them in France in 1985 - to his pictorial skills and the plastic authenticity of his art. It also springs from the artist's overtly didactical treatment of the theme and of those involved in the events he depicts. He shows the hero as the symbol of light and the hero's enemies as the embodiment of evil. The chords struck by the painter in his viewers' hearts united them in the acclaim of his work.
Khanjian's art never impresses one as a product of straightforward spontaneity; instead it bears witness of the artist's prolonged pondering over Armenian history. The artist casts a modern man's look upon historical events and evaluates them in the light of the spiritual experience of the twentieth century. Of exceptional interest in this respect are the travel graphic sheets done by Khanjian during his trips to Italy, Spain and Mexico. Those are much more significant than just sketchbook drawings, which are pictures drawn by an observer overwhelmed by his impressions. The artist is concerned with human drama no matter where he comes across it. A Chronicle of Our Day is the title of a series of lithographs made by him in 1972. The series, in a way, sums up the observations and the reflections of Khanjian as a mature master. His close contacts with Spanish and Mexican cultures brought forth a new line in the artist's treatment of motifs inherent in his art. Paintings by Grigor Khanjian are intimately linked with the graphic art pieces he executed. In them one finds the best of that master's art. He had bold preoccupation with the most important and sensitive problems of the day, and a style for presenting complex relationships and lyricism. His idioms amply manifest itself in Sunflowers (1975), Grain Crops in the Mountains (1972) and Homecoming (1975). But from the mid-seventies onwards his still life's become the leading form in Khanjian's work. These fall easily into groups, each having its own theme, ideas and implications. One is a set of rural still lifes presenting peasant household articles and fruit accentuating their charm and simplicity and putting across the idea of the specific pleasure of living in close proximity to nature. Another set of still lifes carries insets with reproductions of the works of art by Bottichelli, Michelangelo, Vrubel, Rodin, and Manzu. These insets give the spectator a clue to understanding the artist's ideas. In the still lifes on the art theme Khanjian fills an artist's studio with such objects as stretchers, canvases, rolls of paper, and pieces of sculpture. These assume a spiritual meaning before our own eyes, while the cast of a human hand appearing in many compositions, and identified with Khanjian's own hand conveys to us the idea that high art is the making of man's imagination and skill. Since the nineteen seventies the artist's passion for folk art has manifested itself in numerous still lifes and in some of his larger compositions. It led Khanjian to taking an actively practical part in the revival of the traditional folk crafts in Armenia. He was helpful in renewing the production of forged wrought-iron gates and metal lamps as well as of various wood-carved items. Reproducing in his creativity the best traditions of Armenian art and endowed with a wide scope of ideographic vision Khanjian is able to address himself to a multinational viewing public.