View part one of this article HERE.
Second of May 1808 detail
Joaquin Sorolla had an incredibly unique way of capturing scenes that makes them timeless. Many of his works, from the facial expressions to the incredibly real and vibrant color, to his portrayal of human emotion that endures through out the ages, afford the perception that they could have been created in the present day, despite the fact that they were created more than two centuries ago.
A highly diverse Realist he was. In several ways he demonstrated sensibilities of Avante Garde in his works, perhaps influenced from his early job working for his adopted father retouching his photographs. Sorolla influenced the impressionist movement by way of his fascination and command of color and light effects, of the first to paint outdoors,… the way forward. After he’d obtained the “requisite” awards, as Blanca Pons-Sorolla describes Sorolla having felt about them, he began another professional shift to focus exclusively on his own style, and ceased to be a salon painter. His work became at times more painterly (see plates below) and he experimented with new juxtapositions and styles, as shown above in Portrait of the Photographer Christian Franzen, 1903, and Mi Famiglia, 1901, and he masterfully combined his styles, often incorporating realist detail with painterly elements and backgrounds.
Furthermore, after he left the salon circuit he clearly focused his efforts on what he loved: namely his wife, children, all things and acts simple yet beautiful in the world.
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Maria Convalescing in El Prado
He was passionate about his love for his wife and family. He painted them prodigiously in all his genres (they are in my opinion, his portraits). Humorously, they were either suffered to, or happy to, oblige—no matter their mood or state of health. Too tired? He’d paint them in bed. Got a cold while he was working plein aire? He’d bring the bed outside and set them up with plenty of blankets and pillows!
It’s not a scientific or scholarly study, but it seems he adorned those he loved with red, from hints and splashes in the form of flowers and sashes for Clotilde, his girls, and even a few friends who wore, or at least he portrayed them as wearing red buttons and the like. The women in his life, from his wife and daughters to various random young girls wore vibrant red dresses that made them jump out of the paintings.
His fall from grace from the 1920’s to the 1980’s was due to political, economic and cultural reasons. Tomas Llorens writes, in the introduction to the book, a concise summation of ‘historiographical’ model embraced in twentieth century, describing how it was essentially a “chain of doctrinal formulae” based on narrow theories or doctrines. This was particularly unfortunate for Sorolla, as he basically had no interest in art theory. He was as some historians describe as a ‘pintor pintor,’ roughly translated as totally a painter. Though Sorolla was in many ways more diverse than other realists—not only due to his painting style and his defense of it: it is said he was in open and active opposition to the impressionists and some intellectual writers of the day insofar that he defended his own styles and beliefs. Nonetheless, he was lumped in with them during the avante garde movement, and as such the museums put his paintings in storage with those of his peers. Spain was especially hard hit by the civil war and World War II. Their political and economic situation left them isolated from the rest of Europe until the late fifties, and their political situation didn’t begin to stabilize until the late seventies. At which point a younger generation with more objective views was gaining power, and artistic preferences changed from the critique dominated sixties. In the eighties, ten years after the Impressionists enjoyed their revival, the Sorolla’s were taken out of storage and exhibited.
Clotilde and Elena on the Rocks at Javea
Edmund Peel, in his introduction of this book, closes by stating: “I believe, therefore, that following on his great successes in his lifetime, his years in the wilderness of the thirties, forties, and fifties, and his renaissance in the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties, we are now in a position, in the new millennium, with a century of hindsight, to allocate this great painter his rightful place in the history of art.”
Indeed this is happening. This is happening for Sorolla, this is happening for the rest of the artists in his camp. They have made a steady and increasingly strong return to popularity. They are being shown worldwide in major exhibitions on a regular basis, gaining widespread popularity and fetching increasingly higher prices, selling for millions in America, Europe, and Spain.
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Most recently: In 2007, many of his works were exhibited at the Petit Palais in Paris, France, alongside those of John Singer Sargent, a contemporary who painted in a similar style. In 2009 there was a special exhibition of his works at the Prado in Madrid, Spain and there is also a current exhibition at the Oscar Niemeyer Museum, in Curitiba, Brazil.
Study Sorolla’s life and works further with our most recent monograph on the artist. Written by Blanca Pons-Sorolla, the artists great grand daughter and foremost authority on Joaquin Sorolla–it is a beautiful work in and of itself. It is very well written and organized, taking the reader on an often moving path through the author’s life and works, his development and progression as a painter, and struggles as a man. Pons-Sorolla further offers interesting and unique perspectives of the political and cultural environments in Europe from Sorolla’s viewpoint as a Spaniard, and how his viewpoints affected his life and work. It also includes a detailed chronology for quick reference for comparison studies.
