The Ninth Wave, 1850
Ivan Aivazovsky
Oil on canvas · 221 x 332 cm
Survivors cling to a broken mast as a towering, sunlit wave looms over them, capturing the sublime terror and beauty of the sea.
Survivors cling to a mast as a towering wave rears in the dawn light, sea and sky ablaze with gold. Aivazovsky, the great Romantic painter of the sea, makes the ocean glow with both terror and beauty in his most celebrated canvas.
What you're looking at
He painted the sea from memory, in the studio, with no reference in front of him — he made something like six thousand pictures this way. The water is built in thin transparent glazes layered over a light ground, which is why it appears lit from behind rather than from the front. The title comes from a sailors' belief that waves come in sets and the ninth is the killer.
On a Frame TV
About 1.49:1. The clean crop takes a trim top and bottom and keeps the wave and the raft. Glowing golds against deep green; high contrast, and one of the works here that looks best on a large bright panel.
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More like this
Other works in the collection, starting with Ivan Aivazovsky.
