Born in 1817 in Feodosia, the Russian romantic painter Ivan Aivazovsky was contemporaneously highly regarded for creating realistic seascapes and rose to prominence as the official painter of the Imperial Russian Navy. While Aivazovsky is still well known throughout Armenia, Russia and Ukraine, he remains relatively unknown by the rest of the world. To raise awareness of Aivazovsky’s artistry, St. Petersburg–based designer Diana Polar and Parisian creative developer Eugene Lee created this site that celebrates the 200th anniversary of the painter’s birth. The site divides Aivazovsky’s life into six chapters, letting visitors journey through his childhood, education, career and travels that took him all over Europe; a full-screen menu split into five columns presents these different chapters. Subtle SVG animations and extensive archival images create an immersive experience and brings an exploratory element to the artist’s biography.

Using a minimalist JavaScript framework with the template system mustache.js to build the site, Polar and Lee utilized Canvas and the GreenSock Animation Platform for the site’s animations and transitions, LESS for the CSS stylesheets, and three.js to create the transparent, animated clouds that float above the site’s background. To reduce latency in downloading assets, Lee implemented the CloudFront content delivery network to serve up the site’s large collection of images. Since its launch, the site has received more than 20,000 visitors and garnered recognition from Awwwards and the CSS Design Awards.