Ivan Aivazovsky

You know, some artists find their inspiration in one particular subject. A well-known russian painter of the nineteenth century, Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky was one of them.

Ivan Aivazovsky  was passionate about  the sea. His seascapes and coastal scenes are well-known world over. Even more, perhaps, there was no other painter in Europe, who depicted the extraordinary beauty of the sea with so much expressiveness and feeling.

   

However, Ivan Aivazovsky also painted landscapes, including scenes of peasant life in Ukraine and city life in Istanbul. Here are they for you to compare with his marvelous seascapes:

    

An intresting fact is that some critics have called his paintings from Istanbul Orientalist, and others feel the hundreds of seascapes can be repetitive and melodramatic. So, “tastes differ”.

The native town of Ivan Aivazovsky is the town of Feodosiya (Theodosia) in Crimea, where “the Aivazovsky Art Gallery” can be also found.  The gallery is famous fot its largest collection of Aivazovsky’s masterpieces. Obviously, Ivan Aivazovsky has made an outstanding contribution to the artistic heritage.

     

Moreover, Ivan Aivazovsky has developed a totally unique style.  The painter’s technique and imagination in depicting the shimmering play of light on the waves and seafoam is especially admired.

What is more, it gives Aivazovsky’s seascapes a realistic quality. I was surprised that, according to some experts, it also echoes with the works of a British Romantic watercolorist Joseph Mallord William Turner and Russian painter Sylvester Shchedrin. 

There’s no doubt that especially effective is Aivazovsky’s ability to depict diffuse sunlight and moonlight, sometimes coming from behind clouds or through a fog, with almost transparent layers of paint. You can notice this in his works. A series of paintings of naval battles painted in the 1840s brought his dramatic skills to the fore, with the flames of burning ships reflected in water and clouds.

To conclude, just enjoy the most famous work by Ivan Aivazovsky, which is called “The Ninth Wave”:

 

As you see, the painting depicts a sea after a night storm and people in a small boat, who are facing death attempting to save themselves by clinging to debris from a wrecked ship.

Warm tones used in this painting are not used by random.Thanks to these colours the sea appears to be not so menacing and giving a chance for the people to survive.

This painting is often called “the most beautiful painting in Russia”.

 

M. C. ESCHER

It’s always very strange to speak about something  favorite, when it concerns art. Art itself is too many-sided, too extraordionary … How can I call some artist, for instance, the best one?! However, I will say to you, that I have my so-called favourite artist. And this artist is – Maurits Cornelis Escher. There is no doubt, that his masterpieces impress me greatly…

I found his self-portrait very unsusul. We can see here, how Escher and the interior of his studio in Rome are reflected in the mirrored sphere that he holds in his hand. By the way, Escher’s preoccupation with mirrored reflections and visual illusion belongs to a tradition of northern European art established in the fifteenth century. Here you can see this self-portrait:

As concerns the technick, Escher often used his drawings as studies for prints, but he occasionally also experimented with various drawing techniques. His most important experiments are the “scratch drawings” for which he evenly coated the paper with lithographic drawing ink. He then drew on the prepared surface with a pointed tool, scoring or scratching into it to produce his image. This technique, which he first employed in 1929, led Escher directly to his work in lithography.

By the way, many of his graphical and conceptual boons are included in artistic symbols of the twentieth century paintings, and were “quoted” by other painers as well. At the same time, Escher’s artworks refer to elitism.

One of the most curious things about this artist, obviously, is that he found inspiration for his works in reading mathematical articles. Can you believe it? The articles about tiling, for instance, inspired him greatly. Those articles, where you can usually find information about a way of arranging identical plane shapes so that they completely cover an area without overlapping, made this gay to draw SUCH GREAT THINGS! It sounds very sophisticated, isn’t it?

However, he found his inspiration in such away. May be for me it will also be a useful idea to look through my school manuals in order to find some new ideas for my drawings? Why not to to read a manual of chemistry or physics, for example? Someday I should think about it.

BOSCH

To inspire myself to draw today – I decided to look at the mysterious and at the same time amazing artworks of famous painter Hieronymus Bosch. By the way, Hieronymus Bosch was not the real name of the artist. It was just his pseudonym. What for his real name, it was – Jeroen Anthoniszoon van Aken.

Speaking about the majority of Bosch’s masterpieces, they are full of various symbols. So, there’s no doubt, that his works are very interesting to investigate. Even now, no one art critic in the world is able to say exactly, what is behind Bosch‘s works.To my mind, this artist is like a big symbol himself, like a puzzle I mean.

Just have a look at his paintings. Can you imagine what was happening in his head while he was creating his paintings?

Take, for instance, his masterpiece called “The Garden of Earthly Delights”. It’s a breathtaking triptych! Looking at this painting you are beginning to doubt that this masterpiece was created about five hundred years ago. It is far from traditional medieval paintings.

As you see, this painting consists of three parts. The central part represents the Garden of earthly delights itself. It’s a panorama of fantastic “garden of love” with lots of naked men and women, extraordinary animals and plants. Lovers indulge in vice in ponds…  In spite of them, you notice birds of enormous proportions, butterflies, horses, etc. Moreover, strange fountains or castles are here  as well.

Now let’s move to the two other parts of this triptych. On the left one – God is shown with Adam and Eve. The atmosphere on this part of the painting is peaceful, combined with lively central part. As for the left part of this masterpiece, here we can see Hell. Again, the atmosphere differs greatly from the left part. Don’t you find it exiting to look at this tryptych as a whole art work, and then at all it’s parts separetely?

Coming back to my pursuit of inspiration… eventually, I found it. Of course, my own drawings are very far from Bosch, but also contain lots of polysemantic symbols. Frankly speaking, I really enjoy to use symbols in my creations. You know, using symbols – is a good idea to say what you feel or think without saying it directly. Moreover, it gives you an opportunity to rouse people’s interest in your works, because looking at your drawings they start to think “what was it exactly about”.

Have you ever tried to draw something?

If you said “no” – so, my friend, obviously, you should try it!

Don’t ask me suck rediculous questions like “Oh what’s the reason of it?!?”

JUST TRUST me, BELIEVE IN YOURSELF and BE BRAVE enough to take a pen or pencil in your hand. Oh dear, and, by the way, don’t forget about a sheet of paper – that’s quite important staff in this bussiness as well.

AND NOW ,please, START draw!! Yes, just draw something that is inside your head… (NO, I DON’T MEAN YOUR BRAINS AS THEY ARE, OF COURSE!!) I’m talking about your thoughts and emotions. Even if you’re thinking about pink rabbits – DRAW! Yes, even if you don’t know how to draw pink rabbits – draw as YOU see them, as YOU can! That’s the idea! Be creative! DON’T BE shy! On no account you should not be afraid of having a different view! That’s quite an important issue because that’s art!!! Just start…

and

KEEP IN YOUR MIND THE FOLLOWING WISDOM:

A man paints with his brains and not with his hands

                                                                                     (Michelangelo)

Oh, I should also say why I’m talkin about it. Well, I’m a so-called painter myself. It’ll be better to say – I’m trying to be a painter. But you know, I have faced an peculiar problem. That’s – inspiration. Sometimes it is really hard to inspire yourself to draw.

However, I think, I’ve find a kind of solution. I’m going to look at works of different art geniuses in order to inspire myself to create. At the same time, it is a good way to broder the knowledges about art history. I’m going to write a king of “Art history for dummies” hahah kidding 🙂 . I promise, it’ll be fun. So, if you’re interested in art, but at the same time, lazy enough to research some academic art literature, you will be welcome to my blog!