Mitologemul apei în opera pictorului rus I.K. Aivazovski
The mythology of water in the work of the Russian painter I.K. Aivazovsky

Summary/Abstract: Water, one of the four fundamental elements, is characterized by the capacity of changing its state: it can transform from liquid to gaseous or even solid (as ice). This extraordinary metamorphic capacity has inspired many artists, from poets to painters, to evoke, to describe, to recreate it under its various forms. One of those artists is the painter Ivan Aivazovski, which has dedicated its career as a painter to portraying water in all its splendour, both calm and angry in its symbolic personification. This paper’s aim is to present some of the most important valences of water in mythology and semiology, and try to uncover the mystical aspects of Aivazovski’s obsession with water, by analysing some of the painter’s most important pieces.

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