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AIVAZOVSKY: ARMENIA’S GREATEST ARTIST. THE FIRST MASTER OF THE ARMENIAN MODERN PAINTING ERA

(1817-1900)

  PART SIX

By Maximillien de La Croix de Lafayette

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky was born in the town of Feodosia in Crimea to a poor family of Armenian  merchants.  His spent his childhood in absolute poverty. At a very early age, he displayed an amazing artistic talent. This. prompted friends of the family to send him to Simpheropol Gymnasium, a modest school offering almost a rudimentary curriculum.

His artistic talent caught the attention of his teachers who used all means and resources to send him to the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts; a prestigious art school, where remarkable and extremely very-well known Russian artists and painters taught arts, painting, sculpture and various visual arts. Only  the best of the best of Russian aspiring and accomplished artists qualified to enter the academy. And Aivazovsky was one of them.

At the academy, Aivazovsky excelled in landscape painting and especially in marine landscape painting.

In the autumn of 1836, Aivazovsky  participated in a collective art exhibition organized by the academy. He submitted five paintings. All five paintings have been accepted and proudly displayed by the curator of the exhibition. In 1837, he entered a major art juried competition and captured the first place. The academy awarded him the “Gold Medal Award” for  two paintings he submitted: “Calm in the Gulf of Finland” and “The Great Roads at Kronstadt, both painted in 1836.

The director of the academy and two art teachers who taught him the marine landscape courses arranged for him an  academic scholarship which allowed him to pursue his art studies in Italy. In 1840, he left Russia and headed toward Italy. One year later, he traveled to France, Spain, The Netherlands and Germany to attend art seminars conducted by illustrious European masters.

 Aivazovsky spent a total of four years in Central Europe. Wherever he went, he was warmly and admirably welcomed by apprentices, teachers, accomplished artists, as well as by the greatest painters of the era such as the French great Master Eugene Delacroix, who once said “Aivazovsky is the grand master of the marine landscape painting.”

Some of his most magnificent and famous masterpieces

were painted in Italy.

Among those fabulous masterpieces, we recognize “The Bay of Napoli by Moonlight”, 1842, “Valetto Harbor”, 1844 and “Seashore at Malta”, 1843. At that time in history, Aivazovsky did not need a model to pose for him, nor did he spend prolonged hours before sceneries, shores, beaches, ocean or ships to complete a painting. He had a legendary artistic memory. He was able to reproduce on the linens, what he has already seen  for a very short time. In fact, he reconstructed the whole sceneries from memory, including the movements of the waves, the structural design of ships, the shape of the shores, the motion of the ocean, the lights of the harbors, the silhouette of the sailors, fishermen and maritime personages from his own imagination. He repainted absolutely everything with an astonishing exactitude. He did not even draw preliminary sketches. Quite remarkable!

In 1844, he returned to St. Petersburg. Upon his arrival, the government bestowed upon him the title of “Academician”, a very prestigious award exclusively given for the elite of a particular field. The Russian government deeply admired his legendary artistic creativity and fluency in various languages and decided to nominate him as an “Attache” to the General Naval Headquarters. This was perfect for him, for this position would allow him to travel abroad with the Russian fleet. This is how, he was able to visit the United States, Egypt, Cyprus, Greece and Turkey.

Being a naval attaché, Avaizovsky was exposed to many military maritime maneuvers as well as to real naval battles. From 1846 to 1848, he painted numerous canvases depicting naval warfare themes and scenes. Some of his most famous military naval battles paintings are “The Battle in the Chios Channel”, 1848, “ The Battle of Chesme”, 1848 and  “Meeting of the Brig Mercury”, 1848.

 Around 1850-1852, Aivazovsky entered the romantic phase of his artistic career. His colors became more romantic, the lights in his paintings became more nostalgic and mysterious, and the whole atmosphere of his themes conveyed intimacy in structure, dramatic dominance and an almost frightening human drama shared by men of the sea and its immense mysteries. Such romantic drama and lyrical expressions were graciously and predominantly expressed in many of his new works, to name a few: “The Sea”, 1853, “The Storm”, 1854, “ The Black Sea”, 1881, “The Tenth Wave”, “The Rainbow”, 1873, “The Shipwreck”, 1876 and “The Billow”, 1889.

In addition to his artistic genius, the man was a great humanitarian. He gave generously to many charitable causes and founded numerous schools of arts such as “Feodosia School of Arts” in 1865 and the “Feodosia Art Gallery” in 1889.

The era of modern Armenian painting began in 1828 when East Armenia (previously a part of the Persian empire) became  a “new part”  of the Russian Empire, a continuity sequence of permanent domination by foreign powers. But, a least, this new foreign domination would allow Armenian arts and literature to flourish.

Armenian arts, literature, poetry and other forms of creative endeavors received a new boost under the Russian occupation. It was characterized by a direct rapport and vital relationships among Armenians, Orthodox Russians  and Europeans. Despite a close relationship with Russian and European arts and culture, the Armenian art did not reach its highest level, glory, fame and did not gain an international recognition in the world art communities until  Hovannes Aivazovsky  began to  capture the beauty, secrets, mysteries, tales, waves, hopes, adventures, soul and spirit of the sea, its people, its maritime battles and ships on hundreds of his majestic paintings.

He was the master and confident of the seascape, its depth with all its colors, frightening and friendly waves flirting on the shores or destroying ships and enemies vessels. No doubt, no painter in the eastern and western hemisphere (up to now) could rival Aivazovsky’s artistic genius and knowledge of the sea.

 Before the arrival of this genius, Armenia was content with illustrious artifacts and art products of a different dimension, nature and scope. Armenia was in the business of exquisite rugs, icons, the manufacturing of holy crosses, Katchkars (cross carved stones) and illuminated manuscripts. The history of modern and universal Armenian art really began with Aivazovsky.

  THE HUMAN ELEMENT AND SPIRIT OF ARMENIA IN AIVAZOVSKY’S PAINTINGS