Ships of Columbus 1880

Curator: Here we have Ivan Aivazovsky’s “Ships of Columbus,” painted in 1880. It's a canvas filled with maritime history, rendered in the artist's signature Romantic style. Editor: Wow, that's ethereal! It’s like looking at a memory fading into the sea. The color palette is so muted, almost sepia-toned. Curator: The magic lies in Aivazovsky's mastery of oil paint. Look at how he suggests the hazy atmosphere and the reflection of light on the water. It's more than just a picture of ships, it's about capturing the experience of being there, the dampness and uncertainty of those voyages. Editor: It definitely evokes that feeling. There’s something haunting about it. Like these massive ships, which were instruments of exploration and also, let’s not forget, colonization, are now ghost ships. Curator: Exactly, and the composition reinforces this. The ships are not sharply defined; they blend into the environment, reflecting the complicated legacy they carry. Consider the materiality of ships: constructed from specific woods and reliant on particular sailcloth, both directly taken from colonized land. The crew as laborers also becomes central. Editor: It almost makes me want to weep for all that has happened. The immensity of the sea dwarfs those tiny figures in the small boat, reinforcing this sense of… regret, perhaps? I wonder what Columbus himself would think of it. Would he feel triumphant or confronted by this interpretation? Curator: Aivazovsky was interested in depicting nature, and the Romantic movement leaned towards sublime and expressive works, so there's not much room left to feel the triumph in "Ships of Columbus". The canvas is full of atmospheric conditions, rendering both ships and the sea into muted material components that are being consumed by mist. Editor: Right. So we’re seeing how landscape, memory, material culture, and personal history get woven together. Curator: Precisely, and seeing it is really a point of departure for our own reflection about the relationship of mankind to its own creations and its actions. Editor: It has certainly opened my eyes. So much more to the history of those voyages than I initially grasped.