Aivazovsky ( 1817 - 1900 )

Marine painter, a forerunner of Realist landscape painting in Russia, who achieved an international reputation.He studied at the St. Petersburg Academy under Vorobyov and the French marine painter P. Tanneur, but formed his style by copying Claude Lorrain and J. Vernet at the Hermitage.He travelled through Europe to Rome ( 1839 ) on a state grant , also visitng Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, England and Holland.In 1844 he returned to St. Petersburg, where he was appointed court marine painter and executed a series of wiews of Russian ports commissioned by Tsar Nicholas I.


He visited Asia Minor in 1846 and became professor at St. Petersburg in 1847.Four Seasons, exhibited in Paris in 1857, earned him the Legion of Honour.He paid an extended visit to Constantinople in 1875, receiving several commissions from the Sultan Abdul-Aziz.A Member of the Amsterdam Academy ( 1844 ) and the Florence Academy ( 1875 ), he claimed to have painted over 4000 canvases.There are works in Feodosia, Helsinki, Leningrad, Moscow.

Lit.T.L.Bulgakov : I.K.Aivazovsky and his Works ( 1901, in Russian )