Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T17:25:47.994Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Aivazovsky's Icebergs: an Antarctic mystery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2014

Rip Bulkeley
Rip Bulkeley*
Affiliation:
38 Lonsdale Road, Oxford, OX2 7EW ([email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Armenian-Russian artist Ivan Aivazovsky completed a painting of a polar seascape entitled Ledyanyye gory [Ice mountains] in 1870. The picture has usually been taken for an Antarctic scene depicting HIMS Mirnyi, one of the two ships of the Russian Antarctic Expedition of 1819–1821, in the presence of icebergs, ice cliffs and floes. The author contends, first, that this identification is open to considerable doubt, and second, that other aspects of the painting are also problematic. The painting is in the Aivazovsky Museum in Ukraine. The Museum kindly supplied him with high resolution photographs of the painting but personal scrutiny has proved impossible hitherto. Further research, especially into Aivazovsky's papers, might resolve some of the questions which it raises.

Type
Notes
Information
Polar Record , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , March 2015 , pp. 212 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bellingshausen, F.F. 1831. Dvukratnyye izyskaniya v yuzhnom ledovitom okeane i plavaniye vokrug sveta v prodolzheniye 1819, 1820, i 1821 godov [Two seasons of exploration in the southern ice ocean and a voyage around the world, during the years 1819, 1820 and 1821]. 2 vols + atlas. St Petersburg: Glazunovs.Google Scholar
Bolton, R. 2008. Russia and Europe in the nineteenth century. London: Sphinx Fine Art.Google Scholar
Bulkeley, R. 2012. Pavel Rozhkov and Slava. ‘The first Soviet whalers in the Antarctic’. Polar Record 48 (3)259–268.Google Scholar
Caffiero, G. and Samarine, I.. 2000. Light, water and sky: the paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky. London: Alexandria Press.Google Scholar
Fox, W.L. 2007. Terra Antarctica: looking into the emptiest continent. Berkeley, CA: Shoemaker and Hoard.Google Scholar
Lazarev, M.P. 1918. Letter to A.A. Shestakov, 24 September 1821 (O.S.). In: Pis’ma Mikhaila Petrovicha Lazareva k Alekseyu Antyanovichu Shestakovu v g. Krasnyi Smolenskoi gubernii [Letters from M.P. Lazarev to A.A. Shestakov at Krasnyi in the Smolensk Governorate]. Morskoi sbornik [Naval Magazine] 403: 51–66 (letter no 1).Google Scholar
Luchininov, S.T. 1973. Shlyup Vostok. Moscow: DOSAAF.Google Scholar
Lyall, S. 1999. Waters of life: the Russian painters of water (1750–1950). London: Parkstone Press.Google Scholar
Petrova, E. (editor). 2012. Pavel Mikhailov: voyages to the South Pole 1819–1821, 1826–1829. St Petersburg: Palace Editions.Google Scholar
Pilipenko, V.N. 1991. Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky. Leningrad: Artist of the RSFSR.Google Scholar
Pyne, S.J. 2004. The ice. London: Phoenix.Google Scholar
Suris, B.D. 1962. P. N. Mikhailov: khudozhnik-puteshestvennik [P. N. Mikhailov: artist and traveller]. Isskustvo 25 (7)66–70.Google Scholar