July 29, 1817 C May 5, 1900) was a Russian painter of Armenian descent, most famous for his seascapes, which constitute more than half of his paintings.Aivazovsky was born in the town of Feodosiya, Crimea, to a poor Armenian family. His parents family name was Aivazian. Some of artist's paintings bear a signature, in Armenian letters, "Hovhannes Aivazian" (Յովհաննէս Այվազեան). His talent as an artist earned him sponsorship and entry to the Simferopol gymnasium ??1 and later the St.Petersburg Academy of Arts, from which he graduated with the gold medal. Earning awards for his early landscapes and seascapes, he went on to paint a series of portraits of Crimean coastal towns before traveling throughout Europe. In later life, his paintings of naval scenes earned him a longstanding commission from the Russian Navy. In 1845, Aivazovsky went to Istanbul upon the invitation of Sultan Abdelmecid, a city he was to travel to eight times between 1845-1890.   Related Paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky :. | Storm | Constantinople Sunset | Gunboat off Crete | Venice | Sebastopol |
Related Artists:
Nikolai Roerich
Russian, 1874-1947 Russian painter, stage designer and founder of cultural institutions. The son of a lawyer of Scandinavian descent, he graduated from the studio of the landscape painter Arkhip Kuindzhi at the Academy of Fine Arts (1897) and from the faculty of law at the University of St Petersburg (1898). He then studied in Paris with the history painter Fernand Cormon (1900). Roerich had wide interests and made an important contribution to Russian culture: he lectured at the Institute of Archaeology (1898); he became secretary of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (1901) and director of its school (1906); and he was the first chairman of the World of Art (Rus. Mir Iskusstva) Society (1910). The first volume of his collected cultural writings was published in Moscow in 1914. As a painter he exhibited with the Academy from 1897, WORLD OF ART from 1902, the Vienna Secession c. 1905 and the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1906. From c. 1903 he was a leading member of the artists' colony at TALASHKINO, where he designed mosaics, friezes, murals and furniture. As a stage designer in Russia, he worked between 1907 and 1915 for such directors as Nikolay Yevreinov (1879-1953),
Hieronymus Janssens
1573 - 1632
Felicien Rops
Belgian Symbolist Engraver, 1833-1898 was a Belgian artist, and printmaker in etching and aquatint. Rops was born in Namur in 1833, and was educated at the University of Brussels. Rops's forte was drawing more than painting in oils; he first won fame as a caricaturist. He met Charles Baudelaire towards the end of Baudelaire's life in 1864, and Baudelaire left an impression upon him that lasted until the end of his days. Rops created the frontispiece for Baudelaire's Les Épaves, a selection of poems from Les Fleurs du mal that had been censored in France, and which therefore were published in Belgium. Rops's association with Baudelaire and with the art he represented won his work the admiration of many other writers, including Theophile Gautier, Alfred de Musset, St phane Mallarm, Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, and Josephin Peladan. He was closely associated with the literary movement of Symbolism and Decadence. Like the works of the authors whose poetry he illustrated, his work tends to mingle sex, death, and Satanic images.