Naples with a poet amongst fishermen

This 1845 canvas returns Aivazovsky to the Bay of Naples, a subject he had explored since his Italian years in the early 1840s. By including a poet among fishermen on the shore, the composition participates in a familiar Romantic iconography that juxtaposes the creative imagination — embodied by the solitary figure with notebook or lyre — against the practical working life of those who actually live from the sea. Neapolitan fishermen were among the most painted working-class subjects in early nineteenth-century European art, prized for their picturesque costume and the dramatic setting of their labor. The addition of a poet figure reflects the Romantic ideal of the artist as interpreter between the natural sublime and human society, translating the experience of the Bay into language just as Aivazovsky translates it into paint. The painting demonstrates his ability to integrate figures into his marine compositions without sacrificing the primacy of sea and sky.

The composition divides into a foreground populated by figures on a rocky shore and a broad middle and background dominated by the bay, Vesuvius, and the sky. Aivazovsky renders the water in warm Mediterranean tones, with lighter values at the horizon and more saturated color in the foreground shallows. The poet figure is distinguished from the fishermen by posture and dress rather than by any elaborate portrait treatment.