Artbook I. Aivazovsky "Moonlit Night on Capri". Moonlight night in Capri Moonlight night in Capri Ivan Aivazovsky
Canvas, oil. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
This painting was created by Aivazovsky during his stay in Italy. According to the plot, it refers to night paintings. Like other works of the artist, it amazes with its realism: both the moon and its light on the sea, as it falls through the clouds - all this is extraordinarily accurately drawn. Very often, such night paintings by Aivazovsky inspired both poets and composers to new talents.
"In this picture I see the moon with its gold and silver, standing above the sea and reflected in it... The surface of the sea, onto which a light breeze is blowing a quivering swell, seems like a field of sparkles or a lot of metallic sparkles on the mantle of the great king!.. Forgive me, great one! artist, if I was mistaken (taking the picture for reality), but your work charmed me, and delight took possession of me. Your art is high and powerful, because you were inspired by genius!"(William Turner).
The following paintings by Aivazovsky also belong to night marinas:
Bay of Naples in the moonlight
Storm at sea at night
1841. Oil on canvas.
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
In 1840, Aivazovsky, along with other pensioners of the Academy of Arts, went to Rome to continue his education and improve his skills in landscape painting. He went to Italy as an already established master, having absorbed all the best traditions of Russian art. The years spent abroad were marked by tireless work. He gets acquainted with classical art in the museums of Rome, Venice, Florence, Naples, and visits Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and Portugal. The artist worked in Italy with great enthusiasm and created about fifty large paintings here. Exhibited in Naples and Rome, they caused a real stir and glorified the young painter. Critics wrote that no one had ever depicted light, air and water so vividly and authentically. His seascapes were especially admired: View of the Venetian Lagoon (1841), Bay of Naples (1841), Amalfi Coast (1841), Chaos. World creation. (1841), Bay of Naples in the moonlight (1842), Coast. Calm. (1843) and many others. This success was perceived in his homeland as a well-deserved tribute to the artist’s talent and skill.
Aivazovsky had an exceptionally versatile talent, which happily combined the qualities absolutely necessary for a marine painter. In addition to a poetic way of thinking, he was gifted with an excellent visual memory, a vivid imagination, absolutely accurate visual sensitivity and a steady hand that kept pace with the rapid pace of his creative thought. This allowed him to work, improvising with an ease that amazed many of his contemporaries. V.S. Krivenko very well conveyed his impressions of Aivazovsky’s work on a large canvas that came to life under the master’s brush: “...By the lightness, the apparent ease of hand movement, by the contented expression on his face, one could safely say that such work is a true pleasure.” This, of course, was possible thanks to a deep knowledge of the various technical techniques that Aivazovsky used.
The painting Moonlit Night on Capri refers to the night marinas of Aivazovsky. He was able to depict the effects of moonlight, the moon itself, surrounded by light transparent clouds or peeping through clouds torn by the wind, with illusory precision. Aivazovsky's images of night nature are some of the most poetic images of nature in painting. They often evoke poetic and musical associations.
“In this picture I see the moon with its gold and silver, standing above the sea and reflected in it... The surface of the sea, onto which a light breeze is blowing a quivering swell, seems like a field of sparkles or a lot of metallic sparkles on the mantle of the great king!.. Forgive me, "Great artist, if I was mistaken (taking the picture for reality), but your work enchanted me, and delight took possession of me. Your art is high and powerful, because you were inspired by genius!" (from William Turner’s notes on one of Aivazovsky’s landscapes).
Bay of Naples.
1841. Oil on canvas.
State Palace and Park
Peterhof Museum-Reserve, Russia.
Maximilian Voloshin.
1907.
Holy countries
Evening ecstasies.
Flashing armor
Have a defeated day!
There is saffron in the waves,
Topazes are swaying,
Spilled sunset
Lakes of fire.
Like a hair
Fibers of fine smoke,
Crouching to the ground,
Turn blue, turn purple,
And the sails
Like the wings of seraphim,
In the sunset darkness
There are flames over the sea.
Wave break
Amethyst shines
Flowy
Emerald lights...
Oh these dreams
About the golden sky!
Oh, the piers
Winged ships!
Sea. Koktebel.
1853. Oil on canvas.
Aivazovsky is a virtuoso of the brush, who mastered all the subtleties of depicting marine life and reached the heights of fame. His masterpieces adorn the best collections in the world and are the pride of our national school of painting. The artist who created this stream of masterpieces owes more than just his talent and hard work. First of all, the creation of the world of his images was determined by his homeland - Feodosia, where from childhood he was accustomed to seeing and learned to love the sea. He spent the best years of his life in Feodosia.
“Before him is his native Black Sea. The roar of the surf bursts into the silence of the spring afternoon. The foaming, furious sea drives the gray waves, and they rise with a roar and crumble near the coastal stones. Only the cry of seagulls, the roar and groans of the harsh elements frighten away the silence that has been weakened by the May heat... The artist looks enchanted at the brightest range of colors born of spring, the sea and the sun. He is completely, completely devoted to this eternal music, repeating from year to year for millions of years” (from the story of I.B. Dolgopolov).
Aivazovsky visits Yalta, Gurzuf and other places in his native Crimea. In 1853, he painted one of the most expressive and perfect paintings of the Sea. Koktebel. It was created in the same best romantic traditions as the painting The Ninth Wave. The action takes place in Koktebel Bay (Gurzuf).
On the right, in the distance, the legendary Kara-Dag rises in ledges; most of the canvas is occupied by the high sky and the agitated sea. The picture is flooded with the bright rays of the setting sun. The sky seems light, the air is clear and humid. The waves, successively flowing onto the shore, are masterfully painted with glazes. The romantic structure of the work is enhanced by the ship struggling with the waves, the red pennant fluttering in the wind and the crescent of the moon emerging in the sky. In this painting, the artist achieved true mastery and great artistry in his manner of execution.
Marine view.
1867. Oil on canvas.
Voronezh Regional Art Museum named after. I.N. Kramskoy, Voronezh, Russia.
The sea has always had a huge attractive force for artists. There is not a single Russian painter who, having visited the sea, would not try to depict it. For some, these were episodic sketches that were not related to the main course of development of their art, while others returned to this topic from time to time, devoting significant space to the depiction of the sea in their paintings. Among the artists of the Russian school, only Aivazovsky devoted his great talent entirely to marine painting. By nature he was endowed with a brilliant talent, which quickly developed thanks to fortunate circumstances and thanks to the environment in which his childhood and youth passed.
Aivazovsky had a long creative experience, and therefore, when he painted his paintings, technical difficulties did not stand in his way, and his picturesque images appeared on canvas in all the integrity and freshness of the original artistic concept.
For him there were no secrets in how to write, what technique to convey the movement of a wave, its transparency, how to depict a light, scattering network of falling foam on the bends of the waves. He perfectly knew how to convey the rumble of a wave on a sandy shore so that the viewer could see the coastal sand shining through the foamy water. He knew many techniques for depicting waves crashing against coastal rocks.
Finally, he deeply comprehended the various states of the air, the movement of clouds and clouds. All this helped him brilliantly realize his painting ideas and create bright, artistically executed works.
Sinop battle. The night after the battle.
1853. Oil on canvas.
Central Naval Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.
A special place in Aivazovsky’s legacy is occupied by works dedicated to the exploits of the Russian fleet, which formed his unique historical chronicle, starting from the battles of the time of Peter I and ending with the contemporary events of the Crimean War of 1853-1856 and the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878 for the liberation of the Balkans. Since 1844, Aivazovsky was a painter of the Main Naval Staff.
On November 18, 1853, during the Crimean War of 1853-1856, a naval battle took place between the Russian and Turkish squadrons in Sinop Bay. The Turkish squadron of Osman Pasha left Constantinople for a landing operation in the Sukhum-Kale area and made a stop in Sinop Bay. The Russian Black Sea Fleet had the task of preventing active enemy actions. The squadron under the command of Vice Admiral P. S. Nakhimov (3 battleships) during cruising duty discovered the Turkish squadron and blocked it in the bay. Help was requested from Sevastopol. By the time of the battle, the Russian squadron included 6 battleships and 2 frigates, and the Turkish squadron included 7 frigates, 3 corvettes, 2 steam frigates, 2 brigs, 2 transports. The Russians had 720 guns, and the Turks - 510. As a result of the battle, which lasted 4 hours, the entire Turkish fleet (with the exception of the Taif steamship) was destroyed. The Turks lost over 3 thousand people killed and drowned, about 200 people. were captured (including the fleet commander). The Russians lost 37 people. killed and 235 wounded. With the victory in Sinop Bay, the Russian fleet gained complete dominance in the Black Sea and thwarted plans for a Turkish landing in the Caucasus.
As soon as word of the Battle of Sinop reached Aivazovsky, he immediately went to Sevastopol and asked the participants in the battle about all the circumstances of the case. Soon, two paintings by Aivazovsky were exhibited in Sevastopol, depicting the Battle of Sinop at night and during the day. These were the paintings The Naval Battle of Sinop on November 18, 1853 and the Battle of Sinop. The night after the battle.
The exhibition was visited by Admiral Nakhimov; highly appreciating Aivazovsky’s work, especially the painting The Battle of Sinop. The night after the battle. He said: “The picture is extremely well done.”
Having visited besieged Sevastopol, Aivazovsky also painted a number of paintings dedicated to the heroic defense of the city.
Among the waves.
1898. Oil on canvas.
Aivazovsky Art Gallery, Feodosia, Ukraine.
The master’s long and glorious life passed in continuous communication with the sea - a symbol of freedom and space. And the sea, sometimes calm, sometimes rough or stormy, generously gave him an inexhaustible wealth of impressions. Aivazovsky painted the painting Among the Waves, which was the pinnacle of his work, when he turned 80 years old.
“Gray furious waves rush over the abyss. They are immense, rushing upward in anger, but black, leaden clouds, driven by a stormy wind, hang over the abyss, and here, as in an ominous hellish cauldron, the elements reign. The sea bubbles, seethes, foams. The crests of the shafts sparkle. Not a single living soul, not even a free bird, dares to witness the raging storm... Deserted...
Only a great artist could see and remember this truly planetary moment, when you believe in the primordial existence of our Earth. And through the roar and roar of the storm, a ray of sun breaks through with a quiet melody of joy, and somewhere in the distance a narrow strip of light glimmers” (I.V. Dolgopolov).
The artist depicted a raging element - a stormy sky and a stormy sea, covered with waves, as if boiling in a collision with one another. He abandoned the usual details in his paintings in the form of fragments of masts and dying ships, lost in the vast expanse of the sea. He knew many ways to dramatize the subjects of his paintings, but did not resort to any of them while working on this work. Among the waves, the content of the painting of the Black Sea seems to continue to reveal itself in time: if in one case the agitated sea is depicted, in the other it is already raging, at the moment of the highest formidable state of the sea element. The mastery of the painting Among the Waves is the fruit of the artist’s long and hard work throughout his life. His work on it proceeded quickly and easily. The brush, obedient to the artist’s hand, sculpted exactly the shape that the artist wanted, and laid paint on the canvas in the way that the experience of skill and the instinct of a great artist, who did not correct the stroke once laid, told him.
Apparently, Aivazovsky himself was aware that the painting Among the Waves was significantly superior in execution to all previous works of recent years. Despite the fact that after its creation he worked for another two years, organizing exhibitions of his works in Moscow, London and St. Petersburg, he did not take this painting out of Feodosia; he bequeathed it, along with other works that were in his art gallery, to his hometown of Feodosia.
Until his old age, until the last days of his life, Aivazovsky was full of new ideas that excited him as if he were not an eighty-year-old highly experienced master who painted six thousand paintings, but a young, beginning artist who had just embarked on the path of art. The artist’s lively, active nature and preserved undullness of feelings are characterized by his answer to the question of one of his friends: which of all the painted paintings does the master himself consider to be the best? “The one,” Aivazovsky answered without hesitation, “that stands on the easel in the studio, which I began to paint today...”
In his correspondence of recent years there are lines that speak of the deep excitement that accompanied his work. At the end of one large business letter in 1894 there are these words: “Sorry, I’m writing on pieces (of paper). I’m painting a big picture and I’m terribly worried.” In another letter (1899): “I have written a lot this year. 82 years make me hurry...” He was at that age when he was clearly aware that his time was running out, but he continued to work with ever-increasing energy.
Ivan Aivazovsky. Moonlight night in Capri.
1841. Oil on canvas.
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia.
In 1840, Aivazovsky, along with other boarders at the Academy of Arts, went to Rome to continue his education and improve his skills in landscape painting. He went to Italy as an already established master, having absorbed all the best traditions of Russian art. The years spent abroad were marked by tireless work. He gets acquainted with classical art in the museums of Rome, Venice, Florence, Naples, visits Germany, Switzerland, Holland,
France, England, Spain, Portugal. The artist worked in Italy with great enthusiasm and created about fifty large paintings here. Exhibited in Naples and Rome, they caused a real stir and glorified the young painter. Critics wrote that no one had ever depicted light, air and water so vividly and authentically. His seascapes were especially admired: View of the Venetian Lagoon (1841), Bay of Naples (1841), Amalfi Coast (1841), Chaos. World creation. (1841), Bay of Naples in the moonlight (1842), Coast. Calm. (1843) and many others. This success was perceived in his homeland as a well-deserved tribute to the artist’s talent and skill.
Aivazovsky had an exceptionally versatile talent, which happily combined the qualities absolutely necessary for a marine painter. In addition to a poetic way of thinking, he was gifted with an excellent visual memory, a vivid imagination, absolutely accurate visual sensitivity and a steady hand that kept pace with the rapid pace of his creative thought. This allowed him to work, improvising with an ease that amazed many of his contemporaries. V.S. Krivenko very well conveyed his impressions of Aivazovsky’s work on a large canvas that came to life under the master’s brush: “...By the lightness, the apparent ease of hand movement, by the contented expression on his face, one could safely say that such work is a true pleasure.” This, of course, was possible thanks to a deep knowledge of the various technical techniques that Aivazovsky used.
The painting Moonlit Night on Capri refers to the night marinas of Aivazovsky. He was able to depict the effects of moonlight, the moon itself, surrounded by light transparent clouds or peeping through clouds torn by the wind, with illusory precision. Aivazovsky’s images of night nature are some of the most poetic images of nature in painting. They often evoke poetic and musical associations.
“In this picture I see the moon with its gold and silver, standing above the sea and reflected in it... The surface of the sea, on which a light breeze is blowing a quivering swell, seems like a field of sparkles or a lot of metallic sparkles on the mantle of the great king!.. Forgive me, great artist, if I was mistaken (taking the picture for reality), but your work charmed me, and delight took possession of me. Your art is high and powerful, because you were inspired by genius!” (from William Turner’s notes on one of Aivazovsky’s landscapes).
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Painting by Ivan Aivazovsky Moonlight Night on Capri: description, biography of the artist, customer reviews, other works of the author. Large catalog of paintings by Ivan Aivazovsky on the website of the BigArtShop online store.
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Ivan Kostantinovich Aivazovsky is the most outstanding Armenian artist of the 19th century, Hovhannes Ayvazyan.
Aivazovsky's ancestors were from Galician Armenians who moved to Galicia from Turkish Armenia in the 18th century. There is also a family legend that there were Turks among his ancestors: the artist’s father told him that the artist’s great-grandfather on the female side was the son of a Turkish military leader and, as a child, during the capture of Azov by Russian troops in 1696, he was saved from death by a certain Armenian who he was baptized and adopted.
Ivan Aivazovsky discovered artistic and musical abilities from childhood. He taught himself to play the violin. The Feodosian architect Yakov Koch was the first to notice the boy’s artistic abilities. He gave him paper, pencils, paints, taught him skills, and helped him enroll in the Feodosia district school. Then Aivazovsky graduated from the Simferopol gymnasium and was admitted at public expense to the Imperial Academy of Arts of St. Petersburg. He was assigned to the fashionable French landscape painter Philippe Tanner. But Tanner forbade Aivazovsky to work independently. Despite this, on the advice of Professor Alexander Ivanovich Sauerweid, he managed to prepare several paintings for the exhibition of the Academy of Arts. Tanner complained about Aivazovsky’s arbitrariness to Emperor Nicholas I; by order of the Tsar, all paintings were removed from the exhibition, despite rave reviews from critics.
The conflict was neutralized thanks to Sauerweid, in whose class six months later an aspiring young artist was assigned to study naval military painting. In 1837, Aivazovsky received a Grand Gold Medal for the painting “Calm.” This gave him the right to a two-year trip to Crimea and Europe. There, in addition to creating seascapes, he was engaged in battle painting and even participated in military operations on the coast of Circassia. As a result, he painted the painting “Detachment Landing in the Length of Subashi,” which was acquired by Nicholas I. At the end of the summer of 1839, he returned to St. Petersburg, received a certificate of graduation from the Academy, his first rank and personal nobility.
In 1840 he went to Rome. For his paintings of the Italian period he received the Gold Medal of the Paris Academy of Arts. In 1842 he went to Holland, and from there to England, France, Portugal, and Spain. During the journey, the ship on which the artist was sailing was caught in a storm and almost sank in the Bay of Biscay. A message about his death even appeared in Parisian newspapers. After a four-year journey in the fall of 1844, Aivazovsky returned to Russia and became a painter of the Main Naval Staff, and from 1947 - a professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, and was also a member of the European academies of Rome, Paris, Florence, Amsterdam and Stuttgart.
Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky painted mainly seascapes. His career was very successful. He was awarded many orders and received the rank of rear admiral. In total, the artist painted more than 6 thousand works.
From 1845 he lived in Feodosia, where with the money he earned he opened an art school, which later became one of the artistic centers of Novorossiya, and was the initiator of the construction of the Feodosia - Dzhankoy railway, built in 1892. He was actively involved in the affairs of the city and its improvement.
At his own expense, he built a new building for the Feodosia Museum of Antiquities, and was elected a full member of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities for his services to archeology.
In 1848, Ivan Konstantinovich got married. His wife was Yulia Yakovlevna Grevs, an Englishwoman, the daughter of a staff doctor who was in Russian service. They had four daughters. But due to Aivazovsky’s reluctance to live in the capital, Yulia Yakovlevna left her husband 12 years later. However, the marriage was dissolved only in 1877. In 1882, Aivazovsky met Anna Nikitichna Sarkisova. Aivazovsky saw Anna Nikitichna at the funeral of her husband, a famous Feodosian merchant. The beauty of the young widow struck Ivan Konstantinovich. A year later they got married.
The texture of the canvas, high-quality paints and large-format printing allow our reproductions of Ivan Aivazovsky to be as good as the original. The canvas will be stretched on a special stretcher, after which the painting can be framed in the baguette of your choice.
Marina is a genre of fine art in which the main thing is to depict the elements of the sea, as well as the struggle against it of a person caught in a storm. Marina is a type of landscape. Artists who paint in the marine genre are called marine painters.
In France, there is an official title of artist of the Navy, which is awarded by the Minister of Defense to outstanding marine painters. This title is also awarded to illustrators, sculptors, photographers and engravers.
The famous representative of the marine genre in France is K. J. Berne, in Japan - Katsushika Hokusai, in England - W. Turner, in Holland - H. V. Mesdag, in Russia - I. K. Aivazovsky and A. P. Bogolyubov.
The marina genre developed gradually. In the paintings of Italian artists of the 14th and 15th centuries, as well as the Dutch “primitivists,” the sea was associated with religious subjects. Marina emerged as an independent genre only in the 17th century in the Netherlands. The sea element was depicted by such masters as S. De Vlieger, J. Porsellis, H. Segers, L. Bakhuysen, J. Van de Cappelle, W. Van de Velde, etc.
The sea in Dutch painting was depicted both as a seething element and as a serene surface of water. Sea waves could serve as a backdrop for sailing ships that sailed against the backdrop of a peaceful sunset or participated in naval battles. Sometimes the sea was endowed with a metaphorical meaning, personifying the element of passion and love or the storms of life.
Marina appears in Russian painting in the 19th century. Pictorial creativity becomes an exponent of the sea element, which is not subject to anyone.
The most famous Russian marine painter was I.K. Aivazovsky. The artist was influenced by French classicists who worked in the marine genre. The painting of F. Tanner had a particular influence on him. But gradually Aivazovsky gets rid of the overly sharp contrasts of the classicist composition and achieves genuine pictorial freedom. And starting from the 1840s, the emotionality of his paintings, gravitating toward heroism and pathos, gave him worldwide fame. Aivazovsky became an adherent of the romantic in depicting the sea element in its various states - from calm to storm. With the same romantic pathos, he depicted the courage of people fighting the unbridled elements.
In addition to Aivazovsky, who earned fame, A.P. Bogolyubov became another outstanding marine painter. In the 1850s, under the influence of Aivazovsky’s work, he created a number of marinas in the spirit of romanticism. These include “The battle of the brig “Mercury” with two Turkish ships.” For this work Bogolyubov receives a small gold medal.
Subsequently, the artist moved away from his passion for romanticism in his works and increasingly preferred to paint in a realistic manner and from life. Since the 1860s, Bogolyubov has been fascinated by the image of the Volga, which strikes his imagination with its immense breadth and beauty. At the same time, romantic pathos in the spirit of Aivazovsky completely disappears from the artist’s works and an epic note appears. At this time, his landscapes are distinguished by a wide coverage of space; the artist masterfully conveys the state of the day and the peculiarities of lighting. The impressions left from naval service help Bogolyubov in painting battle paintings, which also glorified his artistic skill.
The brightest flowering of Bogolyubov’s creativity occurred in the 80-90s. XIX century. It was then that the artist began to paint in a special style, creating sketch paintings (“Toulon. France”).
