Since 1840, when Aivazovsky first visited this city as a scholar of the Academy of Arts, Venice was his constant and favourite "model", invariably romanticised.
In the picture painted in 1878 the artist is preoccupied with the openness and intensity of the public life of the city as much as with the effects of complex lighting.

Aivazovskiy Ivan

Aivazovsky (Haivazovsky), Hovhannes (Ivan Konstantinovich)

1817, Theodosia - 1900, Theodosia
Painter, graphic artist. Studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1833-1838). Fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts in the Crimea and Italy (1838-1844). Academician (1844), professor (1847), honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1887). Member of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome (1840) and the academies of Paris (1843), Amsterdam (1845), Florence (1875) and Stuttgart (1879). Contributed to around 120 exhibitions (from 1835). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1835-1900), Paris Salon (1843, 1879), Society of Exhibitions of Works of An (1876-1883), Moscow Society of Lovers of the Arts (1881), Pan-Russian Exhibitions in Moscow (1882) and Nizhny Novgorod (1896), International Exhibitions in Philadelphia (1876), Munich (1879) and Berlin (1886) and the World Exhibitions in Paris (1858, 1878), London (1863) and Chicago (1893). Awarded the Legion d'honneur (1857). Lived and worked in Theodosia, where he founded the General Art Studios (1865) and the Theodosia Picture Gallery (1880).