Armenian Art has achieved outstanding quality, above all in sacral architecture, reliefs and miniature painting. More than 20,000 manuscripts have been preserved and can be seen in major libraries from Erivan to Paris and London. Most of these manuscripts are illustrated Gospels, many of them produced by monks working on a contract basis. More than 200 examples of historical and contemporary painting from the National Galery in Erivan have been filmed. The sculpture is dominated by relief work, above all bas-relief using two relief layers.
Sacral buildings are wide spread and of enormous significance.
They consist primarily of domed churches, domed halls and domed, cross shaped churches of longitudinal plan. Many famous masterpieces of Armenian architecture lie either in Turkey or in what is nowadays Georgia. However, they have been left to decay, especially in islamic regions. The Armenien-Index documents art in Armenia with about 9,000 photographs, concentrating mainly on the sacral architecture of the country. The photographs of the Bildarchiv Foto Marburg represent the most extensive record of Armenian architecture available anywhere.