Description of the painting by Ivan Aivazovsky “From calm to a hurricane”

Description of the painting by Ivan Aivazovsky From calm to a hurricane

If Shishkin in Russian painting is recognized as the greatest master of landscapes of the Russian hinterland. Now Aivazovsky is known to us, first of all, for his seascapes. This trend in painting is called Morenism.

Aivazovsky all his life, mostly depicted on his canvases only the sea or ocean. The water surface on his canvases was stormy, now delightfully calm. On the canvases were seascapes, namely views of the city from the sea surface. But on this canvas, the artist tried to convey the changeable state of the sea, which is barely noticeable to man and therefore, it seems that the element came suddenly.

Although in fact, knowledgeable people almost immediately predict what will happen. Look at how dynamically the plot of the canvas is constructed: from left to right – calm sea and the sky is not even overcast, but closer to the equator of the canvas everything changes. Severe thunderstorm powerful clouds have already

appeared, and below the waves are gradually gaining their power, they are not so terrible for ships. But what is shown below is the true power of water. Here, in the sky, not just clouds, but powerful thunderstorm clouds, in which everything mixed up – thunder, lightning, and heavy rain. But this is an upper force, and at the bottom the water force has gained momentum.

The waves have become more powerful, the height of the waves has become much higher and looks much more terrible… Such waves easily destroy ships. The most interesting thing is that hurricanes, as a rule, do not last long – a maximum of a few hours, the most record – a day. But when it all passes, the sea or ocean suddenly becomes calm, quiet and harmless. About the terrible phenomenon are only unpleasant memories.

Aivazovsky left us a large number of canvases, which are now stored in Evpatoria. And all the paintings, one way or another, are connected with the sea, because the author was madly in love with this element and it seems that the only one who learned how to transmit the life of water is practically on a real basis.


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Description of the painting by Ivan Aivazovsky “From calm to a hurricane”