A Crimean-born Armenian, Ivan Aivazovsky was raised largely in Poland and then studied art in St. Petersburg. He loved travel, found solid success, and enjoyed commissions from Russian aristocrats and highly placed officials as far away as Istanbul. Late in life he painted the oppressions of his fellow Armenians, but his overriding passion was – always – the sea of his childhood.

Aivazovsky combined the realistic quality of photography with a penetrating romantic intensity. Waves crashing, ships careening, a silvery moons forcing clouds to part: everything moves. In this respect, he was the Russian J.M. W. Turner, the earlier English master whose canvases of the sea awe us even today. Aivazovsky understood how Turner had shaped paint and light to create a gale or build waves that crashed a ship to slivers. He then added a modern eye for realism shaped, no doubt, by the advances of the new technology of photography.

Even when Aivazovsky’s seascapes are peaceful, there is always motion, as in Sea View by Moonlight. The kind of artistic energy that created Aivazovsky’s Wave would never be content with a sea of glass.

Here’s what I suggest. If you are near a good art library and can find a high-quality book of Aivazovsky’s reproductions, go there. Otherwise, use the Internet, and travel through canvases of the sea. Expect to be shaken and tossed about, for you will be. And wonder, along with me, how light, a flat surface, and paint can combine to bring the massive power of the sea to life.