We had a big book with printed reproductions proudly displayed on the brown lacquered modular unit in our living room. I couldn’t wait to be alone at home so to climb over the back of the green armchair, take the heavy brick from the upper shelf and spend hours staring at the full-page illustrations.
My 7 yrs old brain was addicted to the feelings radiated by each painting and urged me to look at them again and again. Even today I cannot tell exactly what provoked my young imagination that much – was it the soft colours of Aivazovsky’s foaming waves or was it the deep despair which only a shipwreck in a storm could convey, I don’t know.
Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky
- Russian Romantic painter, one of the greatest masters of marine art.
- Born on 29 July 1817 into an Armenian family in the Black Sea port of Feodosia in Crimea.
- Initially known as Ivan Gaivazovsky (Иванъ Гайвазовскій in the pre-1918 spelling, coming from his father’s family name Aivazian), upon graduation he traveled to Europe and lived briefly in Italy where he became popular as Aivazovsky.
- In the early 1840s he was made an academic of the Imperial Academy of Arts and the main painter of the Russian Navy.
- In 1847 Aivazovsky became professor of seascape painting and was elevated to the rank of nobility. In the same year, he was elected to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
- In 1848, Aivazovsky married Julia Graves, with whom he had four daughters. In 1882 he married his second wife, Anna Burnazian, a young Armenian widow 40 years his junior.
- Throughout his career, Aivazovsky created more than 6,000 paintings, the majority of which seascapes but also portraiture, landscapes and battle scenes.
- Famous for his incredible artistic memory, Aivazovsky never painted his pictures from nature. He was able to depict a seascape for a very short time, without even having to make a preliminary sketch or to be near shores.
- Ivan Aivazovsky died on 2 May 1900 in Feodosia and was buried at the courtyard of St. Sargis Armenian Church.
- Aivazovsky’s works are kept in Russian, Ukrainian and Armenian museums and private collections.
Like many other fantastic artists and as one of his most popular quotes reveals, Aivazovsky’s talent and inspiration rooted in a deep fascination with what he thought is the ultimate perfection – nature:
