Ivan Ayvazovsky - The Black Sea, (A Storm Begins to Whip up in the Black Sea) [1881]

The Black Sea, (A Storm Begins to Whip up in the Black Sea) [1881], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Ayvazovsky (1817 - 1900) was the best known and most celebrated Russian artist of marine paintings. The sea appears in his paintings as something multifaceted. At times it is an element which is not subjected to any laws and which shatters man; at other times it is tempting in the distance, a symbol of Romantic dream. The viewer beholds an endless expanse of sea and infinite heavens above it. In the foreground there is a wave with whitecaps of foam - the "Ayvazovsky wave" as his contemporaries called it. The palette is unusually rich. It brings together greens, silver tones, emerald tints and extends to the darkening deep blues at the horizon. In the centre we see a lone sailboat, symbol of man's insignificance before the universe and at the same time a sign of the Romantic Wanderlust.

[Oil on canvas, 149 x 208 cm]