Ivan Aivazovsky - a great marine painter and creator of 6,000 canvases; favorite of European exhibitions and "father" of Feodosia - all his life he loved the sea and his hometown. And they reciprocated.
Biography
Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (Armenian Hovhannes Ayvazyan) was born on July 17, 1817 in Feodosia. His father, an Armenian merchant, Georg Ayvazyan, was engaged in trade, and his mother Hripsime was a talented embroiderer. In addition to Ivan, the family had one more son and two daughters. The artist's elder brother Gabriel later became the archbishop of the Georgian-Imeretian Armenian diocese, a member of the Echmiadzin Synod, an orientalist and a writer.
For some time the family was quite prosperous, but after the epidemic of 1812, the father's affairs went worse and all household members had to go to the economy. Little Ivan had to work in a coffee shop to help his family.
There is an anecdote that at the age of 11 the talented Ivan drew waves and sailboats with coal on the walls of the city of Feodosia, and during this occupation he was caught by the mayor, who, instead of scolding the child, sent him to the gymnasium. In another version of this anecdote, the mayor drew attention to the image of a military man on the wall of a coffee shop. Be that as it may, two people took part in the fate of the boy: the architect Yakov Kokh and the governor of Tavrida Alexander Kaznacheev, who until 1830 was the mayor of Feodosia. Yakov Kokh and Alexander Kaznacheev supported the talented boy in every way and supplied him with the objects necessary for drawing - paper, paints, pencils. At the suggestion of Kaznacheev, the 14-year-old boy was admitted to the Tavrichesky gymnasium.
Subsequently, the boy was sent to the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, which required some trouble. For Vanya Aivazovsky, the wife of the Tauride governor Natalya Naryshkina and the famous portrait painter Salvator Tony worked for him. They wrote a letter to the president of the Academy of Arts, Alexei Olenin, and enclosed the boy's drawings.
Petersburg
At the Academy of Arts, Ivan Aivazovsky was assigned to the landscape class of Maxim Vorobyov. Later he got to the French artist Philippe Tanner. Tanner used the apprentice for ancillary work, not allowing him to paint his paintings. Nevertheless, Ivan Aivazovsky adopted the mechanism of writing water from his teacher and wrote in 1835 at the age of 18 his first work "Study of Air over the Sea", for which he received his first silver medal at the exhibition. True, this caused a conflict between him and Tanner, in which even the emperor was involved. Aivazovsky was threatened with disfavor, but everything worked out and his envious teacher was in disfavor.
In 1837, 20-year-old Ivan Aivazovsky was released from the Academy as an artist. The academy considered that she could no longer give the young talent. There were still two years left until the end of the training.
Europe
Ivan Aivazovsky received a scholarship for an internship in Crimea and Europe. He painted Crimean landscapes, and then left for Italy. In the romantic version of Aivazovsky's biography, it is said that he himself contributed to the internship in Italy, hoping to meet his first love, the famous dancer Maria Taglioni, there. He met her and even offered her a hand and heart, but the ballerina, who at that time was 38 years old, and who was 13 years older than Ivan, rejected his offer.
The artist visits Italy, Germany, France, England and Spain. In Italy, Ivan Aivazovsky paints many landscapes, including the famous "Chaos", which impressed Pope Gregory XVI so much that he was going to buy it, but the artist, having learned about this, offered to donate the painting himself. In response, the Pope awarded the painter a gold medal.
The passion for travel has followed him all his life. Despite the fact that he considered only Feodosia to be his home, Aivazovsky visited a number of European countries, Constantinople, and at an advanced age he visited the United States with his second wife. Abroad, he enjoyed continued success. At the age of 57, after the exhibition in Florence, his work once again made such a splash that the Florentine Academy of Arts invited him to paint his portrait for placement in the gallery of the Pitti Palace, which contains portraits of famous artists from the Renaissance. Previously, of the Russian artists, only Orest Kiprensky was awarded such an honor.
Feodosia
Feodosia occupied a special place in the artist's life. It was there that he went with his young wife, leaving Petersburg at the peak of his fame. In Feodosia, he built himself a house like Italian Renaissance villas. A spacious workshop was attached to the living rooms, where Aivazovsky will paint most of his works, including such well-known canvases as "The Ninth Wave", "Black Sea", "Among the Waves".
Subsequently, he added an art gallery to the house to store his works. In 1880 he donated the gallery to the city. At that time in Russia there were only two repositories of paintings open to the general public - the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and the Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow. In the Feodosia Art Gallery. Aivazovsky contains 416 works by Ivan Aivazovsky. In addition, his works are kept in the Russian Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Hermitage, and other museums and private collections.
The artist lived in Feodosia all his life. In Feodosia, he taught children to draw, built a city concert hall, a fountain, and a building for an archaeological museum. Took part in the construction of the port and railway. In 1881, Ivan Aivazovsky was elected the first honorary resident of Feodosia.
In Feodosia, the artist died - died in a dream from cardiac arrest at the age of 82. The unfinished work "Explosion of the Turkish ship" remained on the easel. He is buried in the territory of the Armenian Church of St. Sergius.
The artist loved his hometown, not a single event, not a single solemn event could do without him. He married and baptized half of the city, giving gifts and doing charity work. And the inhabitants of the city paid him in return. 30 years after the artist's death, a monument to Ivan Aivazovsky was unveiled in Feodosia.
Career
Ivan Aivazovsky was not even 30 years old, when he gained world fame, was familiar with many famous European and Russian people and was received at the imperial court.
In 1844, 27-year-old Aivazovsky became a painter of the Main Naval Staff of Russia. He was asked to paint images of Russian seaports in the Baltic.
A year later, Ivan Aivazovsky became a full member of the Academy of Arts and, as part of the expedition of Fyodor Petrovich Litke, went to the islands of the Greek archipelago.
Ivan Aivazovsky, 30, was appointed professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. In addition, he was a member of European academies - Roman, Paris, Florentine, Amsterdam and Stuttgart. Subsequently, Ivan Aivazovsky became an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts.
In total, Ivan Aivazovsky painted more than 6,000 paintings in his life. Most of them depict the sea element, but there are works on religious themes and non-sea landscapes. The artist faithfully depicted merchant and military sailing ships, was familiar with many admirals and participated in hostilities during the war in the Caucasus. Aivazovsky captured all this experience in his works.
The painter wrote almost all of his paintings from memory, believing that it is precisely this ability to write from memory using the imagination that distinguishes a real artist from a fake one. He had 125 solo exhibitions. The most expensive of Aivazovsky's paintings was the landscape "View of Constantinople and the Bosphorus", bought in 2012 at a Sotheby’s auction for £ 3,230,000.
In addition, Ivan Aivazovsky was a major landowner in Crimea. He owned 12 thousand acres of arable land.
Personal life
Ivan Aivazovsky was married twice. In 1848, at the age of 31, he married the governess, daughter of the English physician Julia Greves. At that time, Aivazovsky was already listed among the most enviable suitors of St. Petersburg, and many mothers dreamed of marrying their daughters to him. When a famous painter chose an unknown governess, society was shocked. Aivazovsky, together with his bride, went to Feodosia and arranged a wedding there.
Ivan and Julia had four daughters - Elena, Maria, Alexander and Zhanna. But the artist's family life can hardly be called happy. Julia's wife was constantly scandalous, reproaching the artist for solitude. She did not want to live in provincial Feodosia, she dreamed of returning to Petersburg and shining at balls. As a result, they do not live together for a long time, and after 30 years they get divorced. Julia with her children settled in Odessa, and Aivazovsky remains in Feodosia.
None of the artist's daughters was engaged in painting, but some of his grandchildren became painters. He took the grandson of Mikhail Latri, the son of his daughter Elena, to his place in Feodosia. At the insistence of his grandfather, Mikhail entered the Academy of Arts in the landscape class of Arkhip Kuindzhi. In addition, Mikhail was seriously engaged in artistic ceramics. In 1920, Mikhail Latri emigrated to Greece, and four years later settled in Paris.
The second son of Elena - Alexander Latri - Ivan Aivazovsky adopted and gave his last name. For this, he wrote a petition to the emperor. Permission, however, was received only a month after the death of Ivan Aivazovsky.
The son of Maria's second daughter, Alexei Ganzen, was also associated with art. He received his law degree in Odessa, and then went to Munich to study with Jerzy Brecht. Graduated from the Berlin and Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. His paintings were successful and well bought. In 1909, Ivan Aivazovsky's grandson was appointed artist of the Russian Maritime Ministry. In 1920 he left for Croatia.
Another grandson of Aivazovsky, Nikolai Artseulov, the son of Jeanne's daughter, built the first Russian dreadnoughts. His brother Konstantin - the most beloved grandson of the famous painter - worked at an aircraft factory, but in 1914 he began his career as an illustrator. His illustrations are adorned with the magazines "Technics for Youth", "Wings of the Motherland" and "Young Technician".
The children of Alexandra's daughter were not associated with art. But it was her son Nikolai in 1907-1909. headed the Feodosia Art Gallery.
Ivan Aivazovsky entered into his second marriage at the age of 65. His chosen one was the beautiful Armenian, 25-year-old widow Anna Nikitichna Sarkizova. The happy husband and wife lived together for 18 years - until the very death of Aivazovsky.
