by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
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Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Rainbow: Introduction
The rainbow in Ivan Aivazovsky’s Rainbow does not announce itself at once. A ship is in distress beside a steep coast, a crowded boat pitches across broken water, and spray obscures the distance. Only after the eye adjusts to those pressures does a pale spectral band emerge within the vapour. Its weakness is essential. Light has begun to change the storm, but nothing in the scene says that the danger has passed.[1]
Painted in 1873, the work is State Tretyakov Gallery inventory 801. Its present title directs attention to refracted colour, while the museum also preserves an earlier title, Sunrise on the Black Sea. Even the published dimensions require care: the current object record gives 105 by 136 centimetres, whereas an affiliated catalogue lists 102 by 132. Those differences belong to the history of one securely identified painting, not to separate versions.[1][2]
At a Glance
- ArtistIvan Aivazovsky (1817–1900).
- Date and medium1873, oil on canvas.[1]
- CollectionState Tretyakov Gallery, inventory 801.[1]
- Current dimensions105 by 136 centimetres; an affiliated record gives 102 by 132.[1][2]
- Earlier titleSunrise on the Black Sea.[1]
- Subjectsailors attempt escape from a ship in distress near a rocky coast as rain, mist and refracted light occupy the storm.[1]
Ivan Aivazovsky in context
Contents
- Introduction
- Inventory, Title History and Dimensions
- Ship, Boats and Cliff
- Where the Rainbow Is—and Is Not
- Spray as Colour and Obstruction
- Rescue without Easy Certainty
- A Different Storm from The Ninth Wave
- Place in the 1870s
Inventory, Title History and Dimensions
Inventory 801 is the firmest shorthand for the object. Aivazovsky returned repeatedly to storms, wrecks, rescue boats and light breaking through cloud, so a descriptive title alone cannot prevent confusion. Date, medium, holding collection and inventory number keep Rainbow attached to the canvas now in the Tretyakov Gallery.[1]
The measurements demonstrate why several fields must travel together. The gallery’s current online record states 105 by 136 centimetres. The affiliated Tretyakov Gallery Magazine catalogue states 102 by 132 centimetres.[1][2] Neither source explains the four-centimetre difference in each direction, and there is no sound basis for choosing one pair as though the other had never been published. Both should remain visible.
Title history adds a more interpretive variation. Rainbow asks viewers to search for a particular phenomenon. Sunrise on the Black Sea instead identifies time, location and the dispersed illumination of a new day.[1] The two names do not cancel one another. Read together, they show that the faint arc belongs to a wider alteration of light across sea and air.
The museum records that Pavel Tretyakov acquired the painting from Aivazovsky before 1893, without supplying a more precise purchase date.[1] That wording should be retained. It establishes direct acquisition from the artist while leaving the exact year open.
Ship, Boats and Cliff
The scene is built around three uneasily related masses. A dark cliff presses down the left side. Near the middle distance, the damaged ship leans beside the mountainous coast, its hull and rigging partly lost in haze. A low boat filled with sailors crosses the foreground, closer to the viewer but not yet close to safety.[1]
The Tretyakov account explains that the crew have lowered boats: one approaches the rocks while another, farther away, is still being prepared.[1] In the image, the foreground craft carries the clearest human action. Its occupants sit tightly together; one figure rises with a long oar or pole, and other bodies follow the boat’s diagonal. Their shared direction produces purpose within water that otherwise seems to move in competing ways.
The ship is not a stable background landmark. Its masts tilt across the mist and its dark bulk is surrounded by surging water. The cliff offers land without offering an easy landing place. Rock, vessel and boat therefore form a rescue geography in which every possible refuge carries another risk.
No uninterrupted horizon steadies the composition. Spray, cloud and the sea’s lifted surface merge around the wreck. Depth must be inferred from scale—the nearer boat, the receding ship and the fading coast—rather than from a clean line where water ends. This makes restricted visibility part of the sailors’ predicament as well as the viewer’s experience.
Where the Rainbow Is—and Is Not
The arc is easily missed because it is neither sharply outlined nor strongly separated into coloured bands. It appears above the lifeboat as a slight change within the mist, extending through an area already tinted by grey-blue, pink and yellow light.[1] Reproduction size, screen brightness and the urge to look first at the wreck can all make it seem still weaker.
That restraint prevents the rainbow from functioning like a sign pasted onto the sky. Its colours share the same moist atmosphere that hides the coast and softens the rigging. The phenomenon is present, but it remains dependent on the surrounding spray. Viewers discover it through differences of hue rather than through a hard edge.
The title can therefore create a useful delay. Knowing the painting is called Rainbow prompts a search, but finding the arc does not suddenly simplify everything else. The boat continues to labour through waves, the ship remains trapped near rock, and visibility stays poor. What changes is the range of possible readings: catastrophe is no longer the only temporal direction.
The earlier sunrise title reinforces this point. Dawn is not confined to the rainbow itself. The upper right becomes brighter, pale yellow spreads through vapour, and cooler colour survives around the cliff and wreck. Illumination is distributed across the weather rather than concentrated in one emblem.[1]
Spray as Colour and Obstruction
Spray does two jobs at once. It records the violence of water breaking into air, and it reorganises the painted field by weakening boundaries. Foam lifts from wave crests; fine moisture passes in front of the ship; cloud and sea lose their usual separation. Forms are not absent, but their edges become provisional.
The gallery description draws attention to complex transitions in the waves, moving among translucent turquoise, ash-pink and white.[1] Those hues may sound unexpectedly delicate for a storm. In the painting they do not prettify calm water. They show changing light entering spray, foam and the thin upper portions of waves, while deeper passages remain green-grey and dark.
This colour structure makes the air feel saturated. The brightest area does not reveal every object with equal clarity; instead, illumination scatters. A boat can be sharply legible in one passage while the larger ship dissolves farther back. The same light that offers orientation also reminds the viewer how little can be seen beyond the next band of water.
Aivazovsky’s broader practice helps explain the coherence. Tretyakov scholarship describes an artist who combined stored visual impressions and organised marine states through memory rather than merely copying one instant.[3] The page on light, memory and marine technique examines that method across several works. Here, mist provides the means by which water, air and refracted colour can occupy one continuous event.
Rescue without Easy Certainty
The institutional interpretation associates the sunrise and rainbow with hope for rescue and an approaching end to the storm.[1] The image supports that reading, but only conditionally. The sailors have left the stricken vessel and remain together in a functioning boat. A bird near the cliff, the paler sky and the visible land all indicate a world beyond the wreck.
Against those signs stand material obstacles. The foreground water is still steep and irregular, the cliff is abrupt, and no figure has reached shore. The second boat remains near the ship. Even the principal craft appears to be driven and lifted as much as steered. Rescue has become imaginable, not accomplished.
This interval is the painting’s strongest narrative decision. A completed landing would turn danger into recollection; an image of the wreck alone would confine the event to destruction. Aivazovsky chooses the uncertain passage between them. The sailors act, the weather shifts, and the viewer receives no final answer.
Hope therefore arises from evidence inside the storm rather than from an external promise. It resides in collective effort, a change of light and the possibility that coast may become refuge. Each positive sign remains entangled with the conditions that threaten it.
A Different Storm from The Ninth Wave
Both Rainbow and The Ninth Wave place survivors within a luminous aftermath, but they organise uncertainty differently. In the 1850 painting, people cling to broken mast timbers while a great swell rises under expansive warm dawn. In Rainbow, the occupied boat moves through a compressed space of rock, wreck and airborne moisture.[3]
The distinction is not simply between more and less hope. The Ninth Wave offers a broad radiant distance but no secure craft. Rainbow gives its sailors a boat and nearby land, yet obscures the route through mist and rough water. One tests survival against exposed scale; the other makes limited visibility and hazardous proximity central.
Later paintings alter the equation again. The Black Sea of 1881 removes almost all rescue narrative so that gathering weather dominates an open field. Wave of 1889 greatly enlarges the wreck scene and gives dark water still more physical weight.[3] Comparison prevents the recurring storm subject from being mistaken for a fixed formula.
Place in the 1870s
By 1873 Aivazovsky had worked publicly for decades, and the vivid Romantic language associated with his earlier success was subject to changing critical taste. Tretyakov scholarship records both admiration for his command of water and suspicion that display or repetition could become mannered.[3] Rainbow matters within that debate because its optical effect is emphatic in concept but restrained in appearance.
The painting does not abandon drama. A ship is lost against rock, the crew face rough water, and colour carries an emotional turn. Yet the crucial light effect is dispersed through haze rather than isolated as a theatrical spotlight. The barely visible arc asks for attention to tonal difference, not just recognition of a spectacular motif.
The current gallery record describes Rainbow as one of the relatively few Aivazovsky works that Tretyakov acquired.[1] It would be unsafe to treat that purchase as proof of a single critical verdict, but it confirms that this exact 1873 canvas entered a deliberately selective collection.
Within the larger paintings guide, Rainbow marks neither a simple break with The Ninth Wave nor an inevitable step towards later austerity. It is a mature experiment in how colour can obstruct and disclose at once. Shipwreck remains the narrative source; unstable atmosphere becomes the means through which rescue is judged.
Researched works directory
This searchable evidence census was assembled from public museum records and a reproducible Wikidata snapshot. It is not a catalogue raisonné, not a claim to complete oeuvre coverage, and not a substitute for the published catalogue literature, which was not used to claim absolute completeness.
| Name | Date | Medium |
|---|---|---|
| A bay at dawn. | 1896 | Painting |
| A bay near Venice | 1842 | Painting |
| A Moonlit Night at Sea | 1885 | Painting |
| A Moonlit Night on the Bosphorus | 1894 | Painting |
| A Moonlit Night on the Crimean Coast | Date unknown | Painting |
| A Rocky Coastal Landscape in the Aegean with Ships in the Distance (detail) | 1884 | Painting |
| A. S. Pushkin and Countess M. N. Raevskaya by the sea near Gurzuf | 1886 | Painting |
| A. S. Pushkin at the Black Sea coast | 1887 | Painting |
| A. S. Pushkin at the Black Sea coast | 1897 | Painting |
| A Ship in a Stormy Sea | 1892 | Painting |
| A ship in peril | 1894 | Painting |
| A Ship of the Russian Navy off the Coast | Date unknown | Painting |
| A storm on rocky shores | 1875 | Painting |
| A Summer’s Day in Crimea | 1867 | Painting |
| A View of Constantinople by Moonlight | 1846 | Painting |
| A View of the Bosporus with the Hagia Sophia and the Maiden's Tower in the Moonlight | 1884 | Painting |
| A Wagon Train in the Desert | Date unknown | Painting |
| Abandoning Ship | 1882 | Painting |
| After the Storm | 1854 | Painting |
| Aiju-Dag | Date unknown | Painting |
| Aivazovsky Ivan Konstantinovic - Colon Sortint de Palos | 1892 | Painting |
| Aivazovsky - Oath befory Battle of Avarayr | 1892 | Painting |
| Aivazovsky with Friends | 1893 | Painting |
| Alexander II Crossing the Danube | 1878 | Painting |
| Alexander Pushkin at the Top of Ai-Petri at Sunrise | 1899 | Painting |
| Along the Coast | 1850 | Painting |
| Alushta | 1878 | Painting |
| American Shipping off the Rock of Gibraltar | 1873 | Painting |
| Among the Waves | 1898 | Painting |
| Arrival of Catherine II in Feodosia | 1883 | Painting |
| Azure Grotto, Naples | 1841 | Painting |
| Barge at Sea Shore | 1860–1870 | Painting |
| Battle of Chesma | 1848 | Painting |
| Battle of Chesma (1886) | Date unknown | Painting |
| Battle of Chios on 24 June, 1770 | 1848 | Painting |
| Battle of Sinope | 1853 | Painting |
| Beach | 1845 | Painting |
| Before the Storm: Theodosia | Date unknown | Painting |
| Biarritz | 1889 | Painting |
| Black Sea Fleet in the Bay of Theodosia, just before the Crimean War | 1890 | Painting |
| Boat Ride by Kumkapi in Constantinople | 1846 | Painting |
| Bosphorus | 1878 | Painting |
| Bosporuse väin öösel. | 1890 | Painting |
| Bracing The Waves | Date unknown | Painting |
| Breaking Wave | Date unknown | Painting |
| Brig “Mercury” Attacked by Two Turkish Ships | 1892 | Painting |
| Brig ''Mercury'' meets with the Russian squadron after the victory over two Turkish ships | 1848 | Painting |
| Broad landscape with settlers | 1856 | Painting |
| Byron in Venice | Date unknown | Painting |
| Byron's visit to the Mekhitarists in Surb Ghazar Island | 1899 | Painting |
| Byron's visit to the Mekhitarists on San Lazzaro | 1899 | Painting |
| Ca d'Oro | 1878 | Painting |
| Calm early evening sea | 1884 | Painting |
| Calm Sea | 1887 | Painting |
| Carriage in a Storm | Date unknown | Painting |
| Catholicos Khrimyan Airik near Echmiadzin | 1895 | Painting |
| Caucasus from the Sea | 1894 | Painting |
| Chaos. The Genesis | 1841 | Painting |
| Chapel by the sea | 1847 | Painting |
| Chumaks in Little Russia | Date unknown | Painting |
| Chumaks leisure | 1885 | Painting |
| Chumaks Waggons | 1862 | Painting |
| Clashes between the Shirvans and the Murids on Gunib | 1869 | Painting |
| Clouds | 1865 | Painting |
| Clouds Over a Calm Sea | 1873 | Painting |
| Clouds over the Sea, Calm | 1889 | Painting |
| Coast | 1840 | Painting |
| Coast of Amalfi | 1841 | Painting |
| Coffee-house by the Ortaköy Mosque in Constantinople | 1846 | Painting |
| Constantinople, la mosquée de Top-Kahné | 1884 | Painting |
| Constantinople Sunset | 1899 | Painting |
| Crimean coast by moonlight | 1853 | Painting |
| Crimean Coast by Moonlight | 1898 | Painting |
| Crimean scene. Gurzuf at night | 1865 | Painting |
| Crimean Tartars on the Sea Shore | 1850 | Painting |
| Crimean Views | 1850 | Painting |
| Cruiser in the sea at night | 1844 | Painting |
| Dante Shows an Artist Some Unusual Clouds | 1883 | Painting |
| Daryal Gorge | 1868 | Painting |
| Deluge | 1864 | Painting |
| Der Fluss Rioni in Georgien | 1870 | Painting |
| Descent of Noah from Ararat | 1887 | Painting |
| Destruction of Pompeii | 1889 | Painting |
| Distributing Supplies | 1892 | Painting |
| Dusk on the Golden Horn | 1845 | Painting |
| End of Storm | 1839 | Painting |
| Entrance to the Sevastopol Bay. | 1852 | Painting |
| Entrée de port | 1846 | Painting |
| Exchange Of Peterburg | 1840–1847 | Painting |
| Exploding Ship | 1900 | Painting |
| Farm House and Windmill by moonlight | 1863 | Painting |
| Fight of the steamer Vesta with the Turkish battleship Fehti-Bulend in the Black Sea on July 11, 1877 | 1877 | Painting |
| Figures on a moonlit coast | 1858 | Painting |
| Fishermen and their Families on the Shore of the Bay of Naples | 1873 | Painting |
| Fishermen on the Beach | 1852 | Painting |
| Fishermen on the shore | Date unknown | Painting |
| Fishermen Returning Near Naples | 1874 | Painting |
| Fishing Boats In A Harbor | 1854 | Painting |
| Foggy day on the shores of Italy | Date unknown | Painting |
| French Ships Departing the Black Sea | 1871 | Painting |
| Frigate under sail | 1838 | Painting |
| From Mleta to Gudauri | 1868 | Painting |
| Frozen Bosphorus Under Snow (detail) | 1874 | Painting |
| Gathering Storm | 1899 | Painting |
| Golden Horn Bay Turkey | 1846 | Painting |
| Gondolier on the Sea at Night | 1843 | Painting |
| Gulf of Naples | 1874 | Painting |
| Gunboat off Crete | 1897 | Painting |
| Gurzuf at night | 1849 | Painting |
| Harbour Scene | Date unknown | Painting |
| Ice-Breakers on the Frozen Neva in St. Petersburg | 1877 | Painting |
| Ice on Dnipro | 1872 | Painting |
| Icebergs in the Atlantic | 1870 | Painting |
| In the harbor | 1840 | Painting |
| In the roads, Evening | 1867 | Painting |
| Italian Landscape | 1855 | Painting |
| Italian Landscape (Lago Maggiore), Evening | 1858 | Painting |
| Iwan Konstantinowitsch Aiwasowskij 001 | 1864 | Painting |
| Jalta | 1838 | Painting |
| Jude's the Apostol betrayal | 1834 | Drawing |
| La Vague | 1886 | Painting |
| Landscape in Crimea. | 1860 | Painting |
| Landscape with Windmills | 1860 | Painting |
| Large raid in Kronstadt | 1836 | Painting |
| Little Russian Ox Cart in Winter | 1866 | Painting |
| Loading Provisions off the Crimean Coast | 1876 | Painting |
| Look to the Large Cascade and Large Petergof Palace | 1837 | Painting |
| Marine scene | Date unknown | Painting |
| Marine View | 1899 | Painting |
| Mercury Brig Meeting a Russian Squadron after her Victory over Two Turkish Vessels | 1848 | Painting |
| Meri | Date unknown | Painting |
| Mine attack by boats of the steamer Grand Duke Constantine on the Turkish battleship Assari-Shevket on the Sukhum roadstead on August 12, 1877 | 1877 | Painting |
| Moon night on the Crimea, Gurzuf | 1839 | Painting |
| Moonlight at night near the spring | 1877 | Painting |
| Moonlight in Naples | 1842 | Painting |
| Moonlit coast | 1864 | Painting |
| Moonlit Landing | 1895 | Painting |
| Moonlit Night | 1850 | Painting |
| Moonlit Night | 1878 | Painting |
| Moonlit Night (1958) | 1858 | Painting |
| Moonlit Night (Aivazovsky) | Date unknown | Painting |
| Moonlit night in Crimea | 1859 | Painting |
| Moonlit night on the seashore in Crimea | 1852 | Painting |
| Moonlit Seascape With Shipwreck | 1863 | Painting |
| Morning on the sea | 1883 | Painting |
| Morning on the shore of the bay | 1853 | Painting |
| Mountain Village Gunib in Daghestan. View from the East. | 1869 | Painting |
| Naples Bay | 1842 | Painting |
| Naples with a poet amongst fishermen | 1845 | Painting |
| Naufragiul 1886 | 1886 | Painting |
| Neapolitan lighthouse. | 1842 | Painting |
| Night at Gurzof | 1891 | Painting |
| Night at the Rodos island | 1850 | Painting |
| Night in Constantinople | 1862 | Painting |
| Night in Venice | 1847 | Painting |
| Night. The Tragedy at the Sea of Marmara | 1897 | Painting |
| Nocturnal Voyage | Date unknown | Painting |
| Odessa at Moonlight | 1846 | Painting |
| Odessa, view from the Sea | 1865 | Painting |
| Old Feodosia | 1839 | Painting |
| Old Theodosia | 1845 | Painting |
| Ox-carts in the Ukrainian steppe | 1888 | Painting |
| Panorama of Constantinopole (detail) | 1856 | Painting |
| Parade of the Black Sea Fleet | 1886 | Painting |
| Passage of the Jews through the Red Sea | 1891 | Painting |
| Passing Ship on a Moonlit Night | 1868 | Painting |
| Peter | 1846 | Painting |
| Peter I at Krasnaya Gorka Lighting a Fire on the Shore to Signal to his Sinking Ships | 1900 | Painting |
| Petersburg. Crossing the Neva. | 1870 | Painting |
| Port of Theodosia | Date unknown | Painting |
| Portrait of A. Kaznacheev | 1847 | Painting |
| Portrait of a man | Date unknown | Drawing |
| Portrait of a Teenager | Date unknown | Painting |
| Portrait of archbishop Gabriel Aivazyan (brother of I. Aivazovsky) | 1883 | Painting |
| Portrait of the grandmother of painter Ashhen | 1858 | Painting |
| Portrait of vice admiral M.P. Lazarev | 1839 | Painting |
| Pushkin and Raevskaya in Gurzuf | 1900 | Painting |
| Pushkin in Crimea near Gurzuf rocks | 1880 | Painting |
| Pushkin's Farewell to the sea | 1887 | Painting |
| Q108330660 | 1847 | Painting |
| Q138511047 | 1857 | Painting |
| Q27074794 | Date unknown | Painting |
| Quiet Night: Armenians Thrown Overboard off the Turkish Ships | 1897 | Painting |
| Rainbow | 1873 | Painting |
| Reeds on the Dnieper | 1857 | Painting |
| Rescuers from the shipwreck | 1844 | Painting |
| Reval (Tallinn) | 1845 | Painting |
| Road in the Forest | 1857 | Painting |
| Rocky Cliffs | 1891 | Painting |
| Rocky Seashore | 1876 | Painting |
| Russian squadron at the Sevastopol roadstead | 1849 | Painting |
| Sailboat . | 1859 | Painting |
| Sailing Boat | Date unknown | Drawing |
| Sailing Ship on a calm sea by Moonlight | 1897 | Painting |
| Sailing Ship on the Sea at Moonlight. | 1840 | Painting |
| Sailing Ships on a Calm Day. | 1887 | Painting |
| Sarkizova Ann, second wife of I. Aivazovsky | 1882 | Painting |
| Scenes from Cairo's life | 1881 | Painting |
| Sea | 1864 | Painting |
| Sea Battle at Navarino on October 20, 1827 | 1846 | Painting |
| Sea coast | 1886 | Painting |
| Sea coast at night. Near the beacon | 1837 | Painting |
| Sea on a Moonlit Night | 1857 | Painting |
| Sea on a Moonlit Night | 1858 | Painting |
| Sea View | 1855 | Painting |
| Sea View | 1875 | Painting |
| Sea view from the chapel on the shore | 1845 | Painting |
| Seascape | 1885 | Painting |
| Seascape | Date unknown | Painting |
| Seascape with a steamer. | 1897 | Painting |
| Seascape with full moon | 1857 | Painting |
| Sebastopol | 1852 | Painting |
| Selbstportrait | 1881 | Painting |
| Selbstporträt | 1892 | Painting |
| Self-portrait | 1874 | Painting |
| Self-Portrait | 1898 | Painting |
| Sheep driven by the storm into the sea. | 1855 | Painting |
| Shepherds' Camp | 1858 | Painting |
| Shepherds with a flock of sheep. | 1872 | Painting |
| Ship Amid the Stormy Sea | 1887 | Painting |
| Ship by Moonlight | 1868 | Painting |
| Ship, castle and sea | 1847 | Painting |
| Ship ''Empress Maria'' in a Storm | 1892 | Painting |
| Ship in a storm | 1899 | Painting |
| Ship in a Stormy Sea off the Coast | 1895 | Painting |
| Ship on Stormy Seas | 1850 | Painting |
| Ship "Twelve Apostles | 1897 | Painting |
| Ships at the raging sea | 1866 | Painting |
| Ships on a misty morning | Date unknown | Painting |
| Ships on Stormy Sea, Sunrise | 1871 | Painting |
| Shipwreck | 1843 | Painting |
| shipwreck | 1876 | Painting |
| Shipwreck in the North Sea | 1875 | Painting |
| Shipwreck of "Lefort | 1858 | Painting |
| Shipwreck off the Black Sea Coast | 1887 | Painting |
| Shipwreck on a Stormy Morning | 1895 | Painting |
| Shipwreck on Stormy Seas | 1886 | Painting |
| Shoreline | 1851 | Painting |
| Sinking Ship | 1854 | Drawing |
| Smolny Abbey. Sunset. | 1847 | Painting |
| Solar Eclipse in Feodosia | 1876 | Painting |
| St. George Monastery. Cape Fiolent | 1846 | Painting |
| St. Petersburg | 1850 | Painting |
| St. Petersburg - Galleon on the docks | 1850 | Painting |
| Steamboat on a Moonlit Night | 1884 | Painting |
| Storm | 1851 | Painting |
| Storm | 1854 | Drawing |
| Storm | 1861 | Painting |
| Storm | 1872 | Painting |
| Storm | 1880 | Painting |
| Storm | 1886 | Painting |
| Storm | 1899 | Painting |
| Storm (1871) | 1871 | Painting |
| Storm at sea | 1850 | Painting |
| Storm at sea | 1873 | Painting |
| Storm at Sea on a Moonlit Night | 1866 | Painting |
| Storm off the coast of Odessa | 1898 | Painting |
| Storm on Sea | 1899 | Painting |
| Storm on the Sea | 1876 | Painting |
| Storm over Eupatoria | 1900 | Painting |
| Stormy Sea | 1844 | Painting |
| Stormy Sea | 1850 | Painting |
| Stormy sea at night | 1849 | Painting |
| Strong Wind | 1856 | Painting |
| Stürmische See im Abendrot. | 1896 | Painting |
| Suez Canal | 1869 | Painting |
| Sunny Day | 1884 | Painting |
| Sunset | 1879 | Artwork |
| Sunset at Sea | 1851 | Painting |
| Sunset at sea | 1877 | Painting |
| Sunset at the Sea | 1848 | Painting |
| Sunset over the Golden Horn | 1866 | Painting |
| Sunset over Yalta | 1861 | Painting |
| Survivors | 1844 | Painting |
| Sveaborg | 1844 | Painting |
| The Baptism of the Armenian People. Gregory the Illuminator | 1892 | Painting |
| The Battle of Revel | 1846 | Painting |
| The Battle of Sinope on 18 November 1853 (Night after Battle) | 1853 | Painting |
| The Battle of Vyborg Bay in 1790. | Date unknown | Painting |
| The Battle of Wyborg Bay | 1846 | Painting |
| The Bay of Naples | 1841 | Painting |
| The Bay of Naples | 1844 | Painting |
| The Bay of Naples | 1845 | Painting |
| The Bay of Naples | 1878 | Painting |
| The Bay of Naples. | Date unknown | Painting |
| The Bay of Naples with Capri | 1891 | Painting |
| The Bay of Yalta with the Magobi and Ai Petri mountains | 1850 | Painting |
| The Beach at Biarritz | Date unknown | Painting |
| The birth of Aphrodite | Date unknown | Painting |
| The Black Sea | 1881 | Painting |
| The Black Sea at night | 1879 | Painting |
| The Black Sea Fleet in Feodosia | 1890 | Painting |
| The Black Sea (Marina) | 1882 | Painting |
| The Burning of the Turkish Flagship by Kanaris | 1881 | Painting |
| The Canal Grande with a view of Santa Maria della Salute at sunset. | 1848 | Painting |
| The Caucasus | 1863 | Painting |
| The Disembarkation of Christopher Columbus with Companions on Three Launches, on Friday 12th October 1492, At Sunrise, on an American Island Named San Salvador by Him on the Very Same Day | Date unknown | Painting |
| The Galata Tower by Moonlight | 1845 | Painting |
| The Great Pyramid at Giza | 1871 | Painting |
| The Harbor at Odessa on the Black Sea | 1852 | Painting |
| The Island of Ischia at Sunset (Sunset over Ischia) | 1857 | Painting |
| The Island of Rhodes | 1861 | Painting |
| The Landing of N. N. Raevskyi at Subashi | 1839 | Painting |
| The Maiden's Tower | 1848 | Painting |
| The Massacre of Armenians in Trebizond in 1895 | 1897 | Painting |
| The Mekhitarist Fathers on Lazarus Island, Venice | 1843 | Painting |
| The Mekhitarist Fathers on San Lazzaro Island. Venice | 1843 | Painting |
| The Ninth Wave | 1850 | Painting |
| The Relief Ship | 1892 | Painting |
| The Rescue | Date unknown | Painting |
| The Russian Squadron on the Sebastopol Roads | 1846 | Painting |
| The Sea | 1865 | Painting |
| The Shipwreck | 1873 | Painting |
| The Shipwreck | Date unknown | Painting |
| The Shores of the Mediterranean | 1892 | Painting |
| The storm at Cape Aya | 1899 | Painting |
| The storm at sea | 1850 | Painting |
| The Storm on the Turkish Coast | 1858 | Painting |
| The strip "Swetlana | Date unknown | Painting |
| The Survivor | 1880 | Painting |
| The survivors | 1895 | Painting |
| The Tide | 1870 | Painting |
| The Wrath of the Seas | 1886 | Painting |
| Theodosia Bay, sunrise | 1855 | Painting |
| Theodosia, end of day | 1865 | Painting |
| Theodosia. Moonlight night | 1852 | Painting |
| Trebizond from the sea | 1875 | Painting |
| Ukrainian Landscape at Night | 1870 | Painting |
| Ukrainian landscape with chumaks in the moonlight | 1869 | Painting |
| untitled | Date unknown | Painting |
| Venetian lagoon. View of the island of San Giorgio. | 1844 | Painting |
| Venice | 1844 | Painting |
| Venice at Sunset | 1873 | Painting |
| View in Crimea at sunset | 1862 | Painting |
| View of a bay with numerous sailing-ships (Feodosia?) | Date unknown | Drawing |
| View of Constantinople and the Bosphorus | 1856 | Painting |
| View of Constantinople by evening light | 1846 | Painting |
| View of Moscow from the Sparrow Hills | 1851 | Painting |
| View of Odessa on a moonlit night | 1855 | Painting |
| View Of The Ayu Dag Crimea | 1868 | Painting |
| View Of The Sea From The Mountains At Sunset. Crimea | 1900 | Painting |
| View of Vico near Naples | 1855 | Painting |
| View to the Crim | 1851 | Painting |
| View to the sea coast near St. Petersburg | 1835 | Painting |
| Volga near the Zhiguli Mountains | 1887 | Painting |
| Walking on Water | 1888 | Painting |
| Walking on Water | 1890 | Painting |
| Wave | 1889 | Painting |
| Wave hitting a Rock | 1860 | Painting |
| Wave. Two Ships | Date unknown | Painting |
| Windmill by the Sea | 1837 | Painting |
| Winter Caravan on Road | 1857 | Painting |
| Winter in Ukraine | 1874 | Drawing |
| Winter landscape | 1876 | Painting |
| Winter Scene in Little Russia | 1868 | Painting |
| Wreck of the ship "Ingermanland" in Skagerrak on the night of August 30, 1842. | Date unknown | Painting |
| Yalta | 1899 | Painting |
Frequently Asked Questions
The painting is in the State Tretyakov Gallery, where it is recorded as inventory 801. It is an oil on canvas dated 1873 and was acquired by Pavel Tretyakov directly from Aivazovsky before 1893.[1]
The gallery’s current record gives 105 by 136 centimetres, while its affiliated catalogue gives 102 by 132.[1][2] The available records do not explain the discrepancy. Both measurements should be reported rather than silently combined or reduced to one.
No. The arc is deliberately slight and is woven into rain, mist and pale colour above the boat. It can be difficult to see in a small reproduction. That visual uncertainty is part of the painting’s effect, not evidence that the title belongs to another work.[1]
The Tretyakov Gallery records Sunrise on the Black Sea as the original title.[1] It directs attention to the broader dawn illumination, while Rainbow singles out one refracted feature within that changing weather.
It shows an attempt rather than a completed outcome. Sailors have taken to boats and the weather is brightening, but waves remain violent and the rocky coast is difficult. The museum’s hopeful interpretation is persuasive precisely because safety is possible without yet being visible.[1]
Discussion
Use this evidence-led guide as a starting point for close looking rather than a final verdict.
Share an observation about Rainbow or a source that adds useful context.
Reader Insights
Which detail most changes your reading of Rainbow?
How do scale, support, medium or present museum evidence shape the encounter?
What remains uncertain when visual inference is separated from documented fact?
Join the Conversation
Add your reading below, keeping observations specific and evidence clear.
References
- State Tretyakov Gallery, “Rainbow”, accessed 30 August 2026.
- Tretyakov Gallery Magazine, “Rainbow” catalogue entry, accessed 30 August 2026.
- Galina Churak, “An Artist of ‘Hellenic’ Spirit”, Tretyakov Gallery Magazine, accessed 30 August 2026.
