Those of you who follow me on Bluesky may have seen that I recently discovered Russian (which is to say, Crimean but it was a Russian territory at the time) painter Ivan Aivazovsky.
I may never recover. I don’t think I’ve ever seen water done like he does it. I don’t think I’ve ever felt an artist loved water as much as I feel he must have. It’s so incredible I could vomit.
This particular piece is held privately, which is a shame, but there’s a museum in Feodosiya, Ukraine – a museum which in fact used to be his home – which holds hundreds of his works, and the Hermitage Museum in St Petersberg has many more, so I’m gonna need, on a selfish personal level, for all this world political nonsense to get sorted out sooner rather than later so I can go stare at these paintings myself.
The dude did over SIX THOUSAND paintings in his lifetime, guys. He was born in 1817, died 1900, and did SIX. THOUSAND. PAINTINGS. in his lifetime!
I don’t think I’ve ever had a favorite painter before, but now I very much do. My God.