Ivan Aivazovsky was born in Feodosia in Crimea in 1817. At the age of 8, he painted a sailing ship with charcoal on the wall of his house. His father was impressed by the drawing so much that, despite the difficult financial situation of the family, he bought his son pencils and paper. The first painting lessons were given to Aivazovsky by the Feodosia architect Yakov Kokh, who also supplied him with paints.

After the Feodosia district school, Aivazovsky was enrolled in the Simferopol gymnasium with the help of the mayor of Feodosia Alexander Kaznacheyev, a connoisseur of his works. He also gave Aivazovsky a letter of recommendation for entering the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.

Aivazovsky’s academic achievements were so great that the Academy Council made an unusual decision: to release him from the academy two years earlier, send him to Crimea for practice and then abroad for six years. For the works that the artist created in Crimea, he received the rank and title of nobility,

Aivazovsky also participated in exhibitions abroad. In France, he was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor for his outstanding civil merit. Aivazovsky became the second Russian artist after Orest Kiprensky, whose portrait was placed in the Pitti Palace in Florence, which contains portraits of renowned Renaissance artists. At that time, there was no other painter who could easily depict the forces of nature so true-to-life.

Aivazovsky’s artwork mainly depicts stormy seas. Of the 6,000 paintings he painted, 4,000 depict hurricanes and shipwrecks.

The artist believed that portraying the way the natural forces change — the movement of a sea, the sound of thunder and the flashing of lightning — while working from life was impossible. Aivazovsky possessed a phenomenal memory, so while working from nature, he tried to feel and remember everything that was happening to later return to the studio to convey those impressions on canvas.

The Arkhangelsk museum’s collection features Aivazovsky’s painting “Sea. Sunset”, created in 1896.