From 27 July to 20 August, in the Visual materials reading room (room 307) there runs a book exhibition “Sea is my life…" timed to the 195th anniversary from the date of the birth of Russian artist, painter of sea-scapes and battle-pieces Ivan Aivazovsky (1817–1900).
“Sea is my life”, the artist wrote. No one could depict the endless expanses and bright sunrises, the sorcery of moonlight nights and terrible fury of storms as poetically as the great son of Armenian people, Ivan Aivazovsky.
An Armenian from Feodosiya, the artist selflessly served his “lovely, calling land”. Being a patron of art, he founded in Feodosiya a new Armenian school and a printing house, built a new Armenian church and reconstructed the old one, established a city art school and an historical-archeological museum, raised a chapel in memory of general P.S. Kotlyarevsky, laid on water supply and promoted railway construction.
Documents exhibited at the exhibition reflect the basic stages of the master’s creative way. As an artist at the Main Naval Staff, the great marine painter was not only a participant of peaceful and serene sea expeditions, but also took part in naval battles fighting on Caucasus shore and landing at Subashi together with soldiers.
Having received the first official order, he performed views of practically all Baltic ports. This period is represented by such works as “The Navarino Battle”, “The Battle at the Island of Chios”, “The Kronstadt Reid” etc.
During his four-year residence in Italy the painter had created and shown dozens of pictures. A number of his works – “The Bay of Naples at Night”, “The Island of Capri”, “Storm” and other reproductions presented at the exposition – received gold medals of the Roman and the Parisian Academies, and the picture “Chaos” was bought for the Museum of Vatican. It is necessary to note that the artist’s self-portrait is kept in Uffizi gallery that is a great honor for only a few outstanding authors.
The artist most fully reflected his Feodosiya period and his love of the native Cimmeria. “Yalta Outskirts”, “A Moonlight Night at the Seashore”, “Sunrise in Feodosiya” are a true song of colors, an ode to beauty of the native land. According to Ivan Aivazovsky’s will, he was buried in Feodosiya in the yard behind St. Sarkis Armenian Church. The road of his final journey was covered with Armenian carpets, and Russian military ships fired volleys to honor the memory of their singer.
The exhibition presents about 80 documents. Among them there are correspondence and memoirs of the artist, N.S. Barsamov’s monograph about the painter, the lifetime edition dedicated to Ivan Aivazovsky’s fifty years’ anniversary (St.-Petersburg, 1887), etc. The basis of the exposition is reproductions of numerous works of the great marine painter.
Contact phone number: (+375-17) 293-27-16.
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