1820 -1890 · Poet, Crimea and memory of the Black Sea

On the shores of Gurzuf, at the top of Aï-Petri or facing the Black Sea, Aïvazovski makes Pushkin a meditative silhouette where poetry, landscape and cultural memory meet.

Ivan Aivazovsky deeply admires Alexander Pushkin, a major figure in Russian literature. The two men met briefly in 1836 during an exhibition in Saint Petersburg, a memory that the painter cultivated throughout his life. After the poet's death in 1837, Aivazovsky multiplied commemorative compositions, sometimes with the collaboration of Ilia Repin for the figure. Pushkin appeared on the coasts of Crimea, a region he had visited in 1820 with the Raïevski family. Pushkin appears on the coasts of Crimea, a region he visited in 1820 with the Raïevski family. In Gurzuf, the poet and Maria Raïevskaya stand in front of a luminous sea which combines biography and legend. At the top of Aï-Petri, the sunrise transforms contemplation into elevation. In Farewell to the sea, Pushkin faces the waves as if dialoguing with the romantic motif of freedom, also present in his poem "At the Sea". These paintings do not document a precise moment with neutrality; they construct a national memory where the Aivazovsky Sea becomes the interior space of the poet. The selection "Pushkin by Ivan Aivazovsky" notably compares Pushkin and Raevskaya to Gurzuf and Alexander Pushkin at the summit of Aï-Petri at sunrise. His reading favors movement.

Aivazovsky does not paint Pushkin in front of the sea, but in conversation with it: the wave becomes memory, freedom and poetic voice.