Ivan Aivazovsky's Miniature Seascapes (ca. 1887)

For Ivan Aivazovsky (1817–1900), born in Feodosia, Crimea, to Armenian parents and often memorialized as one of the Russian Empire’s great marine painters, capturing the sea usually called for large canvases. His turbulent, light-drenched seascapes could be panoramic, stretching more than 200 centimetres (about 6.5 feet) wide. His 1850 masterpiece The Ninth Wave, an oil-painted maelstrom of dark waves against a livid orange sunset, measures 332 centimetres (almost 11 feet) across. But in 1887, Aivozovsky proved he could work at a much smaller scale just as easily. At a celebration marking his seventieth birthday, the artist presented each of his 150 dinner guests with a unique miniature painting: tiny vistas embedded in a studio photograph of himself, poised with brush in hand. At just 10.6 by 7.3 centimetres (about 4 by 3 inches), the paintings are each almost a thousandth of the size of The Ninth Wave. There are two variations of the underlying photograph — in some, he looks at the canvas, in others, at the audience — and a few are dated later than 1887, perhaps implying that Aivazovsky continued the gifting practice for years after the dinner.

As his miniature seascapes suggest, Aivozovsky was prolific. Today, about 6,000 paintings are attributed to him. But his productivity was not always seen as an advantage by his contemporaries. The art critic Vladimir Stasov wrote:

Speed was only one of several critiques reserved for an artist whose achievements brought him to the top of Russian society. Others took issue with Aivozovsky’s inclination toward self-promotion. Visiting Aivozovsky’s gaudy Feodosia home in 1890, the writer and attorney Alexander Vladimirovich complained:

Aivozovsky’s collection of miniature paintings — executed at the very height of his career — certainly reflect his penchant for self-promotion. As for the question of whether an artist’s speed cheapens the value of his work? That comes down to a personal value judgment. But in the history of art, these souvenir paintings seem more significant than a mere experiment in scale. They also made Aivozovsky an early mixed-media pioneer. Decades before dada artists composed subversive photomontage and pop artists like Robert Rauschenberg collaged paint and photography, the great Romantic Aivazovsky was not too precious to do his own small experiment with form.