Volga near the Zhiguli Mountains

Ivan Aivazovsky's 'Volga near the Zhiguli Mountains' (1887) represents his turn from his characteristic marine subjects to Russia's greatest river — the Volga as a subject that carried deep associations of Russian national identity, the traditional spirit of the Russian people, and the commercial vitality of the empire's interior. The Zhiguli Mountains along the Volga formed one of the most scenic stretches of the river, their abrupt hills rising from the flat steppe on the other bank creating a distinctive landscape contrast. Aivazovsky's engagement with river subjects late in his career extended his water mastery from the sea to the inland waterway.

Aivazovsky renders the Volga with the water-observation skills his decades of marine painting had given him — the river's different qualities (its calmer surface compared to the sea, its reflections of the Zhiguli hills, and the particular quality of continental light on inland water) depicted with his characteristic luminous technique. His handling of the sky and its reflection in the river creates the spatial openness of the great river landscape.