Joaquín Sorolla

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Joaqun Sorolla y Bastida (Valencian: Joaquim Sorolla i Bastida, 1863 – 10 August 1923) was a Spanish Valencian painter. Sorolla excelled at the drawing of portraits, landscapes, and monumental works of social and historical interest. His most popular works are characterized by a dexterous depiction of the people and landscape of Spain and sunlit waters.

Early life

Joaqun Sorolla was born in Valencia, Spain, on February 27th. Sorolla was the eldest child born to a tradesman, Joaqun Sorolla, and Concepción Bastida. Concha's sister, Concha, was born a year later. Both children were orphaned when their parents died, possibly due to the cholera. They were then cared for by their maternal aunt and uncle, a locksmith, who were then cared for.

He began his art training at the age of nine in his hometown town, followed by a succession of educators, including Cayetano Capuz, Salustiano Asenjo. In the Museo del Prado's youth, he travelled to Madrid, intensely researching master paintings. Sorolla, who completed his military service at the age of 20, received a grant that allowed him to study painting in Rome, Italy, where he was welcomed by and found peace in the example of Francisco Pradilla, the director of the Spanish Academy in Rome. A long journey back to Paris in 1885 gave him his first exposure to modern painting; Jules Bastien-Lepage and Adolph von Menzel's exhibits were of particular note. José Benlliure, Emilio Sala, and José Villegas Cordero all enrolled in Rome.

Sorolla returned to Valencia in 1888 to marry Clotilde Garca del Castillo, whom he first encountered in 1879 while working in her father's studio. They had three children together by 1895: Maria, 1890, Joaqun, born in 1892, and Elena, born in 1895. They went to Madrid in 1890, and Sorolla's exhibitions in Madrid, Paris, Munich, and Chicago were concentrated on large canvases of orientalist, mythological, cultural, and social topics.

His first striking success was achieved with Another Marguerite (1892), which was awarded a gold medal at the National Exhibition in Madrid and then first prize at the Chicago International Exhibition, where it was acquired and donated to the Washington University Museum in St. Louis, Missouri. He rose to general prominence and became the first president of the modern Spanish academy of painting. The Return from Fishing (1894) was much celebrated at the Paris Salon and was purchased by the state for the Musée du Luxembourg. It indicated the direction of his mature output.

Sorolla created two masterpieces in 1897 that combined art and science: A History and the Microscope. These paintings were on view at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Madrid in that year, and Sorolla received the Prize of Honor. Simarro is portrayed as a man of science who imparts his wisdom, and, in addition, it is the triumph of naturalism as it recreates the laboratory's indoor environment, catching the luminous glow produced by the artificial reddish-yellow light that casts through the window. These paintings may be some of the best world paintings of this period.

Sad Inheritance (1899, seen at right), a large canvas that was unquestionably complete for public study, marked a turning point in Sorolla's career. The subject was portrayed as a depiction of crippled children bathing at the sea in Valencia, under monk's watchful eye. Perhaps, they are the victims of hereditary syphilis, as the name suggests. Campos has claimed that the polio epidemic that struck Valencia some years earlier is present, perhaps for the first time in painting history, mainly because of the pictures of two impacted children. Sorolla's greatest official recognition, the Grand Prix and a medal of honor at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, as well as the medal of honor at the National Exhibition in Madrid in 1901 earned him his highest medal of honor.

A series of preparatory oil sketches for Sad Inheritance's sparkle and bravura, and foretold an increasing interest in shimmering light and of a medium deftly treated. Sorolla loved enough of these sketches that he gave two of them as gifts to American artists; one to John Singer Sargent; the other to William Merritt Chase. Sorolla never returned to a period of such overt social consciousness after this painting.

The exhibition at the 1900 Paris Universal Exposition of Honour received a medal of distinction and his nomination as Knight of the Legion of Honour; within the next five years Sorolla would have been recognized as a member of the Fine Art Academies of Paris, Lisbon, and Valencia, as a Favorite Son of Valencia.

At the Galeries Georges Petit in Paris in 1906, a special exhibition of his drawings—figure subjects, landscapes, and portraits—shadowed all his previous accomplishments and culminated in his appointment as Officer of the Legion of Honour. The show featured nearly 500 works, including early paintings, as well as more recently sun-drenched beach scenes, landscapes, and portraits, a success that stunned observers and was a financial triumph. Although subsequent large-scale exhibitions in Germany and London were met with greater caution, Sorolla visited Archer Milton Huntington, who made him a member of The Hispanic Society of America in New York City, 1909, and invited him to exhibit there. There were 356 paintings on display, 195 of which sold. Sorolla lived in America for five months and created more than twenty portraits.

Sorolla's works are often seen together with that of his contemporaries and acquaintances, John Singer Sargent and Anders Zorn.

Although formal portraiture was not Sorolla's style of preference because it restricted his creative energies and exposed his lack of concern in his subjects, the acceptance of portrait commissions was profitable, and his family portraiture was irresistible. Velázquez's influence in My Family (1901), a reference to Las Meninas, which placed his wife and children in the foreground, was at times noticeable, as seen in a distant mirror, reflected the painter's reflection. The desire to compete with his friend John Singer Sargent was evident at other times, as shown in Mrs. Ira Nelson Morris and her children (1911). This portrait, which was donated to the Hispanic Society of America, by Mr. Taft, President of the United States, is on permanent display at the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The appearance of sunlight could be used to spark his curiosity, and it was outside where he found his ideal portrait locations. So, not only did his daughter pose in a sun-dappled landscape for Mara (1907), but so did Spanish royalty for the Portrait of King Alfonso XIII in a Hussar's Uniform (1907). Mr. Louis Comfort Tiffany (1911), the American artist, posed at his easel in his Long Island garden, surrounded by extravagant flowers. The idea comes to a peak in My Wife and Daughters in the Garden (1910), in which the fear of traditional portraiture gives way to the sheer delight of a painting made with thick passages of color, Sorolla's love of family and sunlight merged.

Sorolla returned to the United States for the second time in 1911 and exhibited 152 new paintings at the Saint Louis Art Museum and 161 in Chicago a few weeks later. Sorolla met Archie Huntington in Paris later that year and agreed to paint a sequence of oils on life in Spain. These 14 majestic murals, which were installed in the Hispanic Society of America building in Manhattan, are ranging from 12 to 14 feet in height and total length. It was the major commission of his career that dominated Sorolla's later years.

Huntington had intended the painting to depict a history of Spain, but the painter selected the less specific Vision of Spain, eventually opting for a map of the provinces of Spain and naming it The Provinces of Spain. Despite the enormity of the canvases, Sorolla painted just one en plein air and then travelled to the exact locations to paint them: Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Elche, Seville, Andalusia, Extremadura, Galicia, Castellen, Leon, and Ayamonte. Each mural reflected the region and culture of its area, with panoramas made up of throngs of labourers and locals. He was exhausted by 1917, by his own admission. By July 1919, he had completed the final panel.

Sorolla suffered from a stroke in 1920 when painting a portrait in his garden in Madrid. He died on August 10th, 1923, after being paralysed for more than three years. He is buried in Valencia, Spain, and is buried there.

In 1926, the Sorolla Room, which housed the Provinces of Spain at the Hispanic Society of America, opened to the public. The room was closed to renovation in 2008, and the murals visited museums in Spain for the first time. In 2010, the Sorolla Room was reopened, with the murals on permanent display.

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