Ivan Aivazovsky

Born from an Armenian family in Feodosia, a port on the Crimean coast of the Black Sea, Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky was a Russian and Romantic painter.

He left behind him more than 6000 marines, often depicting violent and turbulent seas, and has brought the genre of marine landscape of his country to another level.

He studied and remained notably influenced by Sylvester Shchedrin, at the Imperial Academy of Arts of Saint Petersbourg. After graduating in 1837, he was sent to Italy for further study where he found a new inspiration for coastlines and romantic landscapes. Eventually, he returned to Russia and was appointed painter of the Russian Navy. The painter would join military travels and once back at land, his ability to draw and paint from memory would do the rest.

Aivazovsky will remain an unparalleled master of marine art, whose pictorial philosophy breath on creations: the willingness to render the fragility and vulnerability of humans at fight with the elements, the grandeur of a nature both merciless and sublime, but also a beauty of the natural world that can be calm, serene and peaceful.

His eye for the movements of water and the reflections of the sun and moonlight simply leaves us quiet.