The work of Ivan Aivazovsky has earned high praise from his contemporaries. His paintings, dedicated to the majestic elements of the sea and the exploits of the Russian fleet, are considered unsurpassed masterpieces.

Ivan Aivazovsky held the rank of privy councillor, was an honorary member of the famous art academies: in St. Petersburg, Rome, Amsterdam and other European cities. He lived a long life, had an exceptional capacity for work. And he left behind several thousand paintings. Some of them are included in the Golden Fund of world painting.

Biography of Ivan Aivazovsky

The future artist had a brother and three sisters. The creative talent of Vanya Aivazovsky manifested itself early and attracted the attention of Yakov Khristianovich Koch, a well-known local architect. He gave the boy several lessons and recommended him, as a promising one, to the governor of the city. This contributed to the further education of the child, whose family went bankrupt even before his birth.

Thanks to his talent, hard work, and ability to fully devote himself to his occupation, Ivan Aivazovsky graduated from the Academy two years earlier. He returned to the Crimea, where he independently honed his skills. The young painter took part in another Turkish war. Impressed by the events, his painting “Landing of the Raevsky Detachment in the Subashi Valley” appeared. Emperor Nicholas I highly appreciated the work, taking the young man under his protection.

The next few years were spent traveling abroad.

Ivan Konstantinovich visited Venice, Portugal, France. In 1844, upon returning to his homeland, he received a position as a painter at the Main Naval Staff of Russia. The artist did a lot for the development of his small homeland the city of Feodosia.

Thanks to Aivazovsky, in 1886 a water supply was laid from the Subashsky source to the city center, where a fountain was arranged according to the design of the painter. Ivan Aivazovsky opened an art gallery, a library, a concert hall, an art school, was actively interested in archeology, and supervised many excavations. He also initiated the construction of a railway line from Feodosia to Dzhankoy.

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky worked actively until his death. His last work, “The Explosion of a Turkish Ship”, begun at the age of 82, remained unfinished.