Ivan Aivazovsky

Ivan Aivazovsky was a Russian Armenian painter who basicly only painted the sea. Born 1817 in Feodosia Crimea he grew up looking at the Black Sea and never really left. He painted waves shipwrecks moonlight on water storms that look like the end of the world. He did it from memory too just sat in his studio and let the paint do what it wanted.

The light is what gets you. He had this way of making water glow from the inside like there’s a fire under the waves. A calm sea at sunset a ship caught in a storm the foam curling off a wave. It all feels alive. He traveled alot painted in Italy Turkey always came back to the Black Sea.

He died in 1900. Left behind a museum in his hometown. His work hangs everywhere the Hermitage the Met. He once said the sea is his soul. You can tell.