After the liberation of Eastern Armenia from the Persian yoke and its annexation to the Russian Empire, ties with Western and Russian art were strengthened. Secular art and, mainly, painting started to develop in a new direction.

In the 1830-70s history of the Armenian fine arts portrait painting began to occupy leading place. Among the portrait painters of the period, we should note Hakob Hovnatanyan Jr. and Stepanos Nersisyan - a follower of the academic school.

Nersisyan is considered the founder of the everyday life genre in the Armenian fine arts. He was the first in Armenian artist to combine a genre plot with a broad depiction of the landscape, painted from nature. In the first half of the 19th century, with the appearance of engravings and lithographs by Aghafon Hovnatanyan and Hovhannes Katanyan, Armenian panel graphics began to develop.

In the XIX century, there were many Armenian artists among the students of the Imperial Academy of Arts.

In 1860-1870s one of the founders of the romantic trend in Armenian painting, seascapeist Mkrtich Chivanyan was working.

Because of unfavorable political and economic conditions in Armenia, Armenian artists were primarily engaged in their creative activity in Tiflis, St. Petersburg and Moscow, as well as in the cities of Western and Eastern Europe, which contributed to the enrichment of their creativity with new artistic skills, devices and traditions of these host countries. They devoted their thematic works to the life of the Armenian nation, nature and history of Armenia. Hereby, in the 1880s a whole pleiad of artists appeared, who had dedicated their work to national themes.

At the end of the XIX century (1880-1890), A. Shamshinyan created realistic domestic paintings. He practically became the main continuer of the thematic genre in Armenian painting after S. Nersisyan. This genre, however, reached the highest development level in the works of one of the most remarkable Armenian artists, who created at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries - Vardges Surenyants. He created a series of paintings on historical subjects. Surenyants also acted as a theater artist and illustrator. He was a member of the «The Wanderers» («Peredvizhniki») оrganization.

Since the 1900s, some modernist approaches can be found in Surenyants’s paintings. He is also considered the largest graphic artist among those of that era’s Eastern Armenia. Surenyants’s contemporaries - Emmanuil Maghdesyan and Vardan Makhokhyan are masters of sea landscape. Realistic seascapes of Makhokhyan often have romantic shades, in some cases indirectly adjoining to symbolism. E. Nazaryan worked in the portrait genre, Hmayak Artsatpanyan - in portrait and everyday life genres, Karapet Chirakhyan - portrait and landscape genres. In the 1890s, landscape becomes independent genre of the Armenian painting. The founder of professional landscape painting is Gevorg Bashinjaghyan. His works, created with great skill and a sense of patriotism, depicted the nature and historical monuments of Armenia. Paintings with landscapes of France, Russia, and Georgia also occupied a significant place in the artist’s works. At the same time, Bashinjaghyan was known as the ideologist of classical artistic heritage preservation. In the landscape genre, Shamshinyan and Shishmanyan also worked.

Eghishe Tadevosyan, Panos Terlemezyan and Stepanos Aghajanyan created plot pictures in the vein of a realistic democratic trend of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century. Initially, works by Eghishe Tadevosyan had a significant influence on Surenyants’s art, especially in the national theme. However, since the 1900s, the artist has been more inclined to the impressionistic, pointillist methods of artistic expression. Panos Terlemezyan worked mainly in the portrait genre, however, the artist's manifested his talent also in everyday life and landscape genres.

The works by Hakob Hakobyan are quite notable - portraits, everyday life paintings and landscapes of which are distinguished by realistic skill and thematic unity. At the beginning of the 20th century, Martiros Saryan started his creative activity in Moscow. At the beginning of his creative path, Saryan worked in the traditions of symbolism. In his early works, it is noticeable that the artist was engaged in search for artistic expression new means.

At the beginning of the 20th century, etching master Edgar Shahin and Tigran Polat worked in Paris. In 1916 in Tiflis due to the Armenian artists’ efforts «Union of Armenian Artists» was founded. At the beginning of the 20th century, artists Khachatur Ter-Minasyan, David Okroyants, G. Gabrielyan, Arsen Shapanyan, Hovsep Pusman and others worked.

Graphics develops in the works of Arshak Fetfajyan and Vano Khojabekyan. Khojabekyan’s works depict scenes of Tiflis everyday life, they differ in their sense of humor, with an expressive grotesque touch. Fetfajyan entered the history of the fine arts of Armenia with his watercolor works depicting the historical monuments of Ani.