The Ninth Wave

The Ninth Wave is an 1850 oil on canvas seascape by the Russian marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky, held today at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. It shows survivors of a night storm clinging to wreckage from a wrecked ship as the sea calms after the wave the painting is named for, a mariners term for an especially large wave that follows a run of smaller ones. The wreckage forms a shape many viewers read as a cross, and Aivazovsky uses warm morning light to suggest the survivors have a real chance of living through the ordeal. It is considered Aivazovsky most famous work and a high point of nineteenth century Russian marine painting. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/