Anger of the Seas

The stormy sea is depicted near the rocks, the outlines of which are lost in the darkness. The raging sea merges with a stormy sky. Lightning sparkles from dark clouds. The waves beat on a high shore and flow down the rocks. The atmosphere of the storm, the anger of the sea, is transmitted so powerfully that the viewer hears a roar of waves and peals of thunder.

In the foreground on the left is a boat with people fleeing a shipwreck. One of them points with his hand towards the shore, the others row and this will to life gives hope for the salvation of people who have not submitted to the elements.

The palette of the picture is focused on dark color, but the spectacular contrast between the impenetrable, gloomy clouds and the bright edges of the clouds through which the moonlight breaks through reveals the rich coloring of the work. It is built on a combination of cold and warm gray, dark blue and yellowish ocher tones.

• Fragments of the painting "Wrath of the Seas."
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  Boat with people

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  Clouds and lightning

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  Signature on the front side

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  Signature on the back

The rather philosophical nature of the picture, which distinguishes the best works of art, merged together sea and sky, with reflections of red lightning on the water, cause associations with the work of another outstanding master of romantic seascape, the English marine painter W. Turner ^{[2] [3]} .

• Pictures of W. Turner.
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  Slavers thrown overboard the dead and dying, a typhoon is approaching. 1840

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  Eternal peace. A funeral at sea. 1842

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  Hannibal crossing the Alps. 1812

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  Blizzard - the ship leaves the harbor, giving signals in shallow water and measuring the depth of the lot. 1842

The words of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky about Aivazovsky's painting “The Storm over Yevpatoria”: “There is ecstasy in his storm, there is that eternal beauty that strikes the viewer in a living, real storm” and further: “in the image of the infinite diversity of the storm, no effect can seem exaggerated” ^[4] should be fully attributed to the painting "The Wrath of the Seas", despite the fact that it was painted 25 years after the article by Dostoevsky (1861).

The picture has two copyright signatures, which is not uncommon for I.K. Aivazovsky . One of them is on the front side, at the lower right corner, is made in black paint: "Aivazovsky 1886". Signature paint has common craquelures with the underlying paint layer. On the reverse side, in the upper right is the second author's signature, made in brown: “Aivazovskiy”.

The work has excellent safety.

When creating the picture, the artist used a complex painting technique, including preparatory drawing with a graphite pencil on the ground, several colorful layers of different textures and orientations, glaze and reflexes, strokes of various shapes, densities and lengths, and various textured seals.

The image is written in several stages. The main residence created by large strokes of medium density. Then, over a slightly faded layer, smaller details are written. The illuminated edges of the clouds are written in short strokes of bristle brushes, very well conveying their rounded shapes. The final registration (sections of the mesh of foam dissolving in the waves, streams flowing from the rocks, etc.) are written in translucent whitewash glaze. The foam of the waves is transmitted by thin flowing zigzags, sometimes (on illuminated planes) condensed in the form of various clots. The figures of people written in blue, emerald, red, ocher serpentine brush strokes are conveyed in a generalized manner, expressing a single impulse to salvation ^[5] .

The work is written on a thin rare medium-grained canvas with light factory soil, stretched over a sliding stretcher. The artist often used this type of canvas in other works.

The study of microsamples of painting using infrared spectroscopy, microchemical, emission spectral, luminescent and thermochemical types of analysis found that the pigment composition of the painting is highly characteristic of I.K. Aivazovsky . Paints not used or rarely used by the painter were not found in the work ^{[6] [7]} .

A picture from the famous princely collection in Germany ^[8] . In 2007, the owner, who acquired it in the 1940s from the above private collection ^[8] , was put up for auction at the Sotheby's auction house in London.

It was exhibited at the exhibition of masterpieces of Russian fine art that opened on November 8, 2007 at the State Historical Museum of Russia ^[9] .

Experts singled out the picture as an outstanding work, one of the best at auction. In particular, the head of the Russian art department of the auction house, Joanna Vickery, noted: “The painting“ The Wrath of the Seas ”, on which the artist managed to convey the riot of nature so emotionally and expressively, deserves special attention ^[10] .

November 26, 2007 at the first ever evening auction of Russian art of the London division of the auction house " Sotheby's " ^{[11] [12] the} painting "Wrath of the Seas" (lot No. 12) was sold for 513.3 thousand pounds ^[13] or more than for a million dollars (without auction and other fees).

Currently, the picture is kept in a private collection.

1. ↑ Gianni Caffiero, Ivan Samarine. LIGHT, WATER AND SKY. THE PAINTINGS OF IVAN AIVAZOVSKY. - p.208: 2012 Alexandria Press Ltd., London, England, 2012.
2. ↑ Eric Shanes. Young Mr Turner: the first forty years, 1775-1815. Copyright, 2016, p. 408.
3. ↑ Wilton, Andrew. Turner in his time . - Thames & Hudson, 2010, 2006. - ISBN 9780500238301 , 0500238308.
4. ↑ Exhibition at the Academy of Arts for 1860 - 61 years - F.M. Dostoevsky. Concordance Dictionary of Journalism. (unspecified) .
5. ↑ Tsitovich V.I. EXPERT - ATTRIBUTIONAL CONCLUSION. . - S. 1-4 .
6. ↑ Tsitovich V.I. EXPERT - ATTRIBUTIONAL CONCLUSION . - S. 2-4 .
7. ↑ Tsitovich V.I. , Lugina L.N. Timchenko T.R. "Technology and examination of painting by I.K. Aivazovsky." Kiev, 2002, table on p.77.
8. ↑ ^{1 2} Sotheby's (Firm). Important Russian works from the Schreiber collection = Vazhnye raboty russkogo izobrazitelʹnogo iskusstva iz kollekt︠s︡ii Shreĭber: Russian evening sale, London, November 26 ... Russian day sale, London November 27, 2007 .. - p.50.
9. ↑ “Russian auction of the Sotheby's auction went into the category“ A ” (neopr.) .
10. ↑ “The Week of Russian Antique Trading” starts in London ” (neopr.) .
11. ↑ Electronic newspaper "CENTURY". "The First-ever Evening Auction of Russian Art" (Neopr.) .
12. ↑ Around the world. November 26, 2007. “London sells Russian art.” (unspecified) .
13. ↑ Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky, 1817-1900 THE WRATH OF THE SEAS (neopr.) .