2024-07-15 08:09:57
Sabir’s statue… Narimanov’s statue… There is a single person in Baku who does not see these statues, who does not stand in front of these statues and watch them. We see, we watch, but often we don’t realize who created them. The author of these unique art centuries is Jalal Garyagdi.
Day.Az reports that 109 years have passed since the birth of the famous sculptor, People’s Artist Jalal Garyagdi.
Jalal Garyagdi was born on July 15, 1915 in the city of Shusha. He is the nephew of the great singer Jabbar Garyagdioglu, a representative of Shusha’s famous Garyagdyli family. He lost his parents at an early age and was raised by his aunt and grandmother. In 1927, Jalal came to Baku. Here he is admitted to the Art School. Then he continued his studies at the Tbilisi Art Academy (1932-1935), but due to financial incapacity, he left his studies and returned to Baku. In the 30s of the last century, he worked as an artist in newspapers and as a teacher at the Art School. In the 40s, he started creating sculptures.
Since his youth coincided with the war years, it also left its mark on his creativity. It is enough to name a few of his works. Bust of aviator Adil Guliyev, portraits of tank troop major general Hazi Aslanov, sniper Ziba Ganiyeva. Other portraits authored by Jalal Garyagdi – a series of portraits of famous people such as Bulbul, Rashid Behbudov, Gara Garayev, Fikret Amirov, Jahangir Jahangirov, Niyazi were met with great interest at the time.
The monument of Mirza Alakbar Sabir occupies a special place in the work of Garyagdi. It has an interesting history. In the 1920s, a concrete statue of Sabir was placed in place of the statue we see now. This monument, the author of which was Y. Keilixis, soon began to crumble and fall into a technical state of disrepair. Its replacement with a new one is entrusted to Jalal Garyagdi. The concrete statue was replaced in 1958 by the one you see now.
We want to give some information about the bronze monument of Nariman Narimanov. If you have noticed, the pedestal of the monument is much smaller compared to the statue. Even an outsider can see that the harmony is broken. You may not be wondering why. So keep reading the notes.
It was the 1970s. The sculptor prepared and completed Narimanov’s statue at a high level, with the national fanaticism that comes from within. Some time after the monument was placed in its place, its surroundings were fenced again, and the top of the statue was covered with a canvas cloth. Those who witnessed this remember that at that time there were rumors about the removal of the statue in Baku. This rumor was not unfounded. Narimanov’s statue caused the jealousy of Armenian chauvinists. A denunciation was given to Moscow in this context: the statue of Azerbaijani Narimanov was lifted from the statue of Russian Kirov in Mountainous Park, and it smells of nationalism.
The Kremlin got involved. They wanted to shrink the statue. But this was not possible since the monument was cast from bronze. They saw the way out in shortening the chair. With this, the statue-chair ratio was broken and the composition lost its preconceived monumentality.
Signs of Jalal Garyagdi’s creativity can be found not only in Baku, but also in various cities and regions of the republic. The monuments of the poet Samad Vurgu in Gazakh and the chemist scientist Yusif Mammadaliyev in Ordubad are of this type. Jalal Garyaghdi is also the author of Samad Vurgu’s tombstone monument in Fakhri alley.
J. Garyagdi in different genres of sculpture – monumental statue, portrait, bust, bas-relief, bas-relief, etc. created interesting works from each other. As the characteristic features of the work of the outstanding sculptor, skillful plastic solution of the images, composition exhaustion, breadth of creative manner, skillful disclosure of the individual characters of the images, creative demands on the sculptor himself, etc. features can be noted.
The sculptor was awarded the Honored Art Worker of Azerbaijan in 1954, and People’s Artist in 1960.
The outstanding artist died in 2001.