Throughout his lifetime, Ivan Aivazovsky
contributed over 6,000 paintings to the art world, ranging from his early
landscapes of the Crimean countryside to the seascapes and coastal scenes for
which he is most famous. Aivazovsky was especially effective at developing the
play of light in his paintings, sometimes applying layers of color to create a
transparent quality, a technique for which they are highly admired.
Although he produced many portraits and landscapes, over half of all of
Aivazovsky’s paintings are realistic depictions of coastal scenes and
seascapes. He is most remembered for his beautifully melodramatic renditions of
the seascapes of which he painted the most. Many of his later works depict the
painful heartbreak of soldiers at battle or lost at sea, with a soft celestial
body taunting of hope from behind the clouds. His artistic technique centers on
his ability to render the realistic shimmer of the water against the light of
the subject in the painting, be it the full moon, the sunrise, or battleships
in flames. Many of his paintings also illustrate his adeptness at filling the
sky with light, be it the diffuse light of a full moon through fog, or the
orange glow of the sun gleaming through the clouds.
This painting is a testament to the artist’s skill of
portraying light and dark. With nothing more than a pencil and gouache on
paper, this scene illustrates the strong winds and crash of the waves with
violent intensity. This intensity makes you fear for the safety of the standing
observers, as if the waves threaten to dash the ship against the cliff, upon
which they are standing, and throw them into the sea. Three seagulls fly over
the ship, creating the slight sense that all hope is not lost, and seeming as
if is not impossible to hope that the ship may not yet be lost.
This lovely card was sent to me by Rita from Kaliningrad in Russia.
