The artwork “Dejection of Noah from mountain Ararat” by Ivan Aivazovsky, created in the year 1897, is a work belonging to the Romanticism movement and is categorized as a sketch and study. Romanticism is known for its emphasis on emotion and individualism, as well as glorifying the past and nature.
The artwork portrays a stark, mountainous landscape with the grandeur of Mount Ararat rising in the background. Its unforgiving slopes are rendered with loose, expressive lines that give a sense of the rough, rocky terrain. In the foreground, a procession of figures can be seen, suggesting the biblical narrative of Noah’s descent from the mountain after the flood. These figures are depicted in a sketchy manner, their forms suggested more than fully detailed, conveying a sense of movement and the transient moment captured by the artist. The composition is balanced between the stillness of the mountains and the dynamic line of figures moving within the vast openness of the space, which may evoke feelings of solitude and the monumental struggle against nature’s enormity. Aivazovsky’s use of contrast in the sketch, with darker tones highlighting the procession against the lighter expanse of the landscape, draws the viewer’s eye to the human element within the grandeur of the scene.
