Aivazovsky at the State Russian Museum, Benois Wing

Aivazovsky fills the Benois Wing of the State Russian Museum with 120 paintings by Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky. The works come from the Russian Museum itself, from other leading Russian museums and from the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus. Canvases that normally hang in different cities are brought together under one roof, so visitors can follow the painter’s sea across collections rather than one room at a time.

Paintings are only part of the display. The show also includes more than 30 graphic sheets, which let you see the artist’s work on paper next to his canvases. Alongside them are ship accessories and porcelain decorated with reproductions of his paintings. These objects show how his images travelled beyond the gallery wall and onto the tables and decks of everyday life.

Aivazovsky was born in 1817 in the Black Sea port of Feodosia in Crimea, to Armenian parents, and was baptized Hovhannes Aivazian. He studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, travelled in Europe and lived briefly in Italy in the early 1840s. Back in Russia, he was appointed the main painter of the Russian Navy. He often attended military maneuvers, and he kept close ties with the military and political elite of the Russian Empire.

His reputation reached well past his own lifetime. Anton Chekhov is often credited with popularizing the saying “worthy of Aivazovsky’s brush”, used in Russia for anything lovely, and the painter remains highly popular there in the 21st century. He also held numerous solo exhibitions in Europe and the United States. Seeing 120 of his paintings in the city where he trained gives a rare chance to measure that fame against the pictures themselves.