calling-card (12. 719)

We enjoyed this introduction to prolific Romantic painter Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (Иван Айвазовский) from Crimea of Armenian extraction, considered a master of the maritime scene and appointed official artist of the Imperial Navy and cemented in the popular culture of Russia in the mid-nineteenth century, and beyond (he is the namesake of an asteroid discovered in 1977, 3787 Aivazovskij RG₇) by the saying worthy of his brush by playwright Anton Chekhov, though this set of souvenir keepsakes presented to guests at his seventieth birthday soiree. Each was a unique miniature seascape inset framed by a studio photograph of the artist at work—continuing the gifting for years the original party. Some contemporaries criticised this flair for self-promotion as indicative of Aivazosky’s sheer volume and pace of output—over six-thousand paintings over a career spanning six decades—and cheapening through machine-like habits his monumental works, namely his 1850 The Ninth Wave (Девятый вал) from an old sailing adage that the biggest swell comes in succession of sea wreck survivors clinging to debris and hoping to be rescued—but these creative favours seem more than a demonstration of automation and rather prefigure collage and mixed-media as well as trading-cards and tokens.