Ivan Aivazovsky painted the Ship at the Shore in the 1880’s, presumably in Feodosia. The canvas depicts a storm. Waves roll from the horizon and crash against the stones at the shore. A ship is visible in the distance. The storm wind inflates its sails, and ruffles the water surface forming waves. Through the clouds, the blue sky is visible, and it is a sign that the storm is going to end soon.
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Ivan Aivazovsky
Ship at the Shore
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The artist used transparent silver-gray and green tones for this seascape. Contemporaries noted that Aivazovsky liked to choose a specific color palette for each image and adhere strictly to it. For example, in the Storm on Sea dark gray, blue and lilac colors prevail, and in the Storm over Evpatoria, orange, red and blue.
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The Ship at the Shore seascape refers to the artist’s later period, when he used the improvisation method. The painter had a good visual memory and imagination. He regularly went ashore, watched the change in the sea and made sketches from nature. After that, returning to his workshop, he combined small sketches into a big picture.
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Aivazovsky had a special method of work: he painted pictures in one go, while the paint on the canvas was still wet. The composer and music critic Alexander Serov wrote about this:
’… he and his friends told me in detail how he worked. He painted air within a single morning, no matter how great the picture might be. This required a mixture of colors. Thus, sometimes he couldn’t leave the picture from six in the morning until four in the afternoon…’.
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I.K.Aivazovsky, Storm on Sea, 1863. Rybinsk Museum Reserve
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Ivan Aivazovsky was born and grew up in Feodosia, on the shores of the Black Sea. He watched the sea throughout his life, so he loved to paint the water element in its various states. In total, he created several thousand paintings and sketches of sea. Most of all he was attracted by the theme of the storm, and ships fighting against the natural forces.
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I.K.Aivazovsky, Storm over Evpatoria, 1861. State Museum Reserve Tsarskoye Selo, Pushkin.
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At present, the Radishchev Museum holds five works by Aivazovsky: three seascapes, View of Constantinople, Ship at the Shore, Trebizond from the Sea, and two smaller sketches, Marina and Vesuvius.
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For a long time, the Ship at the Shore was stored in the combined Moscow Public and Rumyantsev Museum. In 1924, it was closed, and the painting was handed over to the National Museum Fund, from where it got to the Radishchev Museum.
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A.N. Radishchev Saratov State Museum of Fine Arts
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Ship at the Shore
Creation period
1880’s
Dimensions
54x72 cm
Technique
Canvas, oil
Collection
16
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