Aivazovsky's Seas and Storms
Ivan Aivazovsky painted almost nothing but the sea for sixty years, and he painted it from memory, in the studio, rather than from the shore.
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About the series
He was born in 1817 in Feodosia, a port on the Crimean coast, and lived and worked there for most of his life. In 1844 he was made official painter to the Russian Navy's main staff, which explains the battle scenes here: Chesme, Navarino, Sinop and the brig Mercury fighting off two Turkish ships.
Aivazovsky believed the movement of water could not be painted from life, so he watched, remembered and then worked fast indoors, sometimes finishing a canvas in a single sitting. His light comes from inside the painting: a low sun through spray, a moon on a calm bay, the green glow of a wave about to break. The Ninth Wave, from 1850, named after the sailors' belief that the ninth wave is the largest, shows survivors clinging to a mast at dawn. It is in the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg.
The storms are dramatic and work best with space around them. The moonlit bays are quieter and suit a bedroom.
