The Ninth Wave

Aivazovsky's most famous painting and a touchstone of Russian Romantic art. The sun rises behind a storm and the ninth wave — sailors' folklore: the largest wave of any sequence — bears down on six men clinging to a broken mast. They have survived the night. The light is gold. The wave is enormous. The painting freezes the second before the next wave. Whether they live or die after is the part the painting refuses to tell. Aivazovsky painted over 6,000 marine works. Now at State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg @rusmuseum