Ivan Aivazovsky, Part 3 | Virtual Musum Tour

And thanks to such stormy events, Ivan Ivozovsky spent many days of his life on the seaside. He was invited to come on board ships, so that he could see some not so stormy, but still military events, and to see the surface of the water, so to speak, from within the sea. And even when he became a very famous court artist, he was certainly given an offer to teach at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, but he could not imagine his existence without the sea. It was his element, it was his homeland, Kemeria, Tavrida, without which he could not imagine his life and creativity. Well, somehow the relationship did not work out. Gradually it chilled, and over time the couple separated and, in the end, broke up. But not only can the exhibits be considered true works of art, but also the building in which they are exhibited. The story of this building is no less interesting than the destiny of the paintings exhibited inside it. 1872. The well-known Crimean seascape painter Ivan Ivozovsky created his next epic work appropriately named Storm. This one was painted just like all of the artist's works, from memory. It does not matter where he was at the time, whether it was his native Feodosia, St. Petersburg, or some other place. He had a very good memory from childhood. Both parents and friends, and relatives confirmed this. Clearly, it was inherent from birth. While in this case, this painting was done in Feodosia, in his hometown, in his own house, on the Black Sea coast. The house and the workshop stand to this very day in this seaside city. The painting clearly attested to the artist's highest level, as well as to the changes that he experienced in his creation. In his mature period, Ivozovsky refused to use the whole palette of colors, and preferred either warm or cold ones. Also, the use of various methods of applying smears from then on somehow animated his paintings. He so skillfully painted the waves, for example. He takes these very small brushes, and sometimes he even uses the reverse side of a handle of a brush. And he puts on like a mosaic, spreads crests of waves. And the waves themselves are non-material. Only Ivozovsky could depict in different ways. There are wet clouds, a stormy sky, and a sea. There are things you cannot touch. Only a very talented painter can express this. As for the methods of working on the canvas, then, in fact, the artist painted a glazing. These are very thin layers of paint that are applied one on top of the other, and create such transparency on the canvas. And thanks to such thin layers of glaze, Ivozovsky's paintings have been preserved up to this day in an ideal condition. They have not cracked, and so-called craquelures never appeared on the canvas. These clouds are so tightly painted that they go somewhere towards the upper corner of the painting, and the waves look practically transparent. Although it is an oil paint, brushes such a thin layer of it on the canvas that even the granular texture looks transparent. It flows like a watercolor paint. But the densely imposed waves and sea foam that he sculpts like a mosaic creates the illusion of materiality. And he painted this glazing on a semi-moist drawing, which created such an additional profound effect. The masterpiece Storm is an outstanding work not only in terms of its artistic embodiment, it also has a certain mystery behind it. The fact of the matter is that Ivozovsky himself said that in his paintings one must first and foremost pay special attention to the bright spots. That is, it can be the sun, or it can be the moon. All one must do is peer into this bright spot, and then with a lateral vision all the mystery and all the beauty of nature that is depicted in the painting will become clearly visible. This work also meets the general principles of the artist's work. In the Storm you should look at the rays of light in the background. By the way, the light on the canvas helps not only to express artistic techniques, it contributes to the realization of the ideological plan laid down by the artist. It helps the painting become even more profound in its meaning and even more multifaceted and mysterious. Ivozovsky, who was very fond of the story, some turning points both in the state of nature and in the life of a man who is doomed to death, because here is a shipwreck and it seems that people will inevitably perish. But it was an artist who loved people and life very much. And something in his paintings always shows that a man will win, that life will win. In his paintings of the struggle of men against chaos, Ivozovsky always gave up hope for the victory of man, the victory of the strength of the spirit before which even raging nature bows down. What does this picture say about this and any work? There is an emotional center, this is light in this case, a powerful light source. These stormy clouds are moving away, the storm and a ray of light is breaking through, a ray of sun, which we cannot see yet. We see only this light source, which illuminates the first plan of the painting. And we see that, in fact, the land is not far away and the people will be saved. In the 1870s, a transition from romanticism to realism took place in the artistic world. Many Russian artists, as well as painters with a world-renowned name, went along a new track. It was a period of artists that reflected the social changes in society in their works. But the Ukrainian Ivozovsky, who was in love with the seas since childhood, remained faithful to his favorite style of romanticism in his works. He retained his mood for romantic emotionality in his works. And at the same time, he started to look for some realistic notes in his works. He became more attentive to nature and to the images of people. And precisely this was the sign of a certain change in his thoughts and his style. Some changes occurred not only in the creative, but also in the romantic life of the artist. In the spring of 1877, he finally received permission to divorce Yulia Grebs. He immediately took advantage of this opportunity, and three years later Ivozovsky opened an exhibition hall in his beloved house in Feodosia. It exhibited recently completed paintings, as well as those that should not have left Feodosia. This year was officially considered the year of the creation of the Feodosia pictorial gallery, which the artist bequeathed to his hometown. This is a very important event, to which we will return at the end of the program. And in 1882, the ray of sun in the life of Ivan Ivozovsky played with all its colors. Once at a funeral, the 65-year-old artist met 25-year-old Anna Brunazian. The feelings that flared between the two were so pure and strong that in the same year they got married. At last, the house of the artist was filled with family comfort. It should not come as any surprise that at this time the next transformations in the artist's work took place. The 1880 to 1890s was the final period in the artist's work, but here he created some very interesting works. You know, Ivozovsky is, first of all, considered an artist of pure seascapes, but he transformed his paintings of the sea into symbolic works. A vivid example of such symbolic work was the painting made in Naples in 1888, titled Walking on Waters. By the composition, it relates to the academic style, but the story goes beyond realism and even romanticism. There, instead of the sun or the moon, Jesus Christ is depicted in a very general way, like a figure that gives light. And this is probably the artist's reflections not just about the being of nature, but about the place of man in this nature, and about the Creator who created all this. This is the uniqueness. Being already a very elderly man, he observed all the new things that happened, which was manifested in Russian and world art. It is noteworthy that with the change of techniques, the color palette, only one thing did not change – the style of painting. Just like before, the artist made only a small outline of the future painting of nature and finished the painting in the studio. And Ilya Ostrovukhov recalled the small sketches made when they were on the French Riviera. Together with the artist, they were looking for very interesting fragments of nature. Then Ivozovsky suddenly pulled out a small sketchbook and drew three lines in it, so that they would be down on paper. Ivozovsky's first line designated the mountains, the second line is the horizon of the ocean, the third line depicted the coastline. After Ivozovsky made these sketches, he asked Ostrovukhov out of sheer curiosity, from which side of the Earth does the sun rise? And Ilya Ostrovukhov said, here, from right to left. And the artist answered, tomorrow you will have already worked. And indeed, in the workshop, the artist created the beautiful landscape of Biarritz. The artist did not finish his last painting, the explosion of the Turkish ship. On the morning of May 1, 1900, Ivozovsky took up a new work. He intended to finish the painting in a couple of days. In the evening, he went to bed, and the next morning he did not wake up. He unfortunately died of a brain hemorrhage in his sleep. So, the representative of the Russian school of painting, the great Armenian and Ukrainian Ivan Ivozovsky passed away leaving a myriad of fabulous paintings from his highly respectable career. The uniqueness of his work, the uniqueness of the life, of his outstanding seascape, is that no matter what periods we say, early, mature, or the last decades of life, he has never been betrayed by glory. This is a rare and perhaps unique case. 60 years of creativity and glory never left him, even for one day. One of the most iconic paintings of the artist, the storm, was presented by him at an exhibition. There it was bought by famous Ukrainian businessman and patrons of art Nikola and his son Ivan Tereshchenko. The canvas was kept in their mansion, where now there is the Taras Shevchenko National Museum. Then it got into our museum already in the 1920s. Then there was the Second World War. The painting was evacuated to Ufa, and in 1944 all the paintings were safely returned to our museum and are now exhibited here. But this painting is very often requested for exhibitions. All seascapes, and especially those of Ivozovsky, are constantly in high demand. And now, as we promised earlier, we will tell about the Feodosia Art Gallery. After the occupation of Crimea by Russia, the invaders took 40 works of the artist from the Ivozovsky Gallery to the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. These were the works that, at the request of Ivozovsky, should not have left Feodosia. That's how the representatives of the Russian world, with its spiritual bond, pay tribute to the memory of an artist whom they have been calling their own for about a century. And a few words about the Russian artist. Until he entered the St. Petersburg Academy, Ivan Sgevorkovich, born in an Armenian family in Crimea, bore the name Ivozovsky in Polish, like his father, who lived many years in the region known as Halychyna, Galicia, in western Ukraine.