After reading “Baikal” by Rasputin and looking at the Aivazovsky paintings I was struck by the different portrayals of water in both the literature and the paintings. Though the paintings did not necessarily depict Lake Baikal, they paired well with the descriptions, both positive and negative from the narrator in Rasputin’s text.

There were many descriptions of Baikal as sacred, specifically “for its miraculous, life-giving force and for its spirit, which is a spirit not of olden times, of the past, as with many things today, but of the present, a spirit not subject to time and transformations, a spirit of age-old grandeur and power preserved intact, of irresistible ordeals and inborn will” (Rasputin 189). After introducing Baikal as such an important and powerful lake, he reflects on a time when he brought a colleague on a walk around the lake when its “beauty was in full bloom and at its peak” (190). The man by the lake’s beauty that, by the end of the day, he cannot intake anymore beauty. The Aivazovsky paintings, specifically “The Sea,” “Sailboat near the Crimean Shore,” and “Moonlit Night” struck me as portraying the kind of serenity and beauty that the man saw on his visit that day. The landscape is vast and shocking and the water is call and beautiful.

The other paintings by Aivazovsky parallel the other side of Baikal that Rasputin is careful to mention to his friend. The side that “can rage for no reason” and when “the transparent ice, swept clean by the winds, seems so thin that the water beneath it is alive and stirring” (Rasputin 191). The paintings “Night Storm at Sea,” and “The Ninth Wave” show the other sides of water that aren’t seen when the sea is calm and the sky is blue. Though these conditions are different and sound more daunting than the picture-perfect day initially described, they are all shown in the paintings to be stunning, striking, and rich in color. Rasputin agrees with this intensely beautiful portrayal of a raging sea, regardless of the dangers. He ends “Baikal” with a cry for protection of the lake, which is interesting given the lack of thesis or obvious political motivation. I wonder if art and literature ever collided to advocate for the environment.