Joaquín Sorolla

From Hispanopedia
Joaquín Sorolla
Self-Portrait (1909), Sorolla Museum, Madrid.
Born
Joaquín Sorolla Bastida
Died
Cercedilla (Spain)
OccupationPainter
MovementImpressionism
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1888)​

Joaquín Sorolla Bastida (Valencia, February 27, 1863 – Cercedilla, August 10, 1923) was a Spanish painter. A prolific artist, he left more than 2,200 catalogued works. His mature work has been labeled Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Luminist.[1]

Biography

Seascape (1880), from Sorolla's first period, when he had not yet finished his academic training. Sorolla Museum, Madrid.

When he was barely two years old, his parents, Joaquín Sorolla Gascón and María Concepción Bastida Prat,[2] died in a cholera epidemic. Left orphans, he and his sister Concha were taken in by their aunt Isabel, their mother's sister, and her husband, a locksmith by trade. As the years passed, his uncle tried in vain to teach him the locksmith's trade, soon realizing that his true vocation was painting.

He studied drawing at the "Escuela de Artesanos de Valencia" (School of Artisans of Valencia).[3] He shared a studio on the ground floor of No. 12 Calle Las Avellanas in Valencia with José Vilar y Torres, the Benlliure brothers—Blas, José and Juan Antonio—and Ignacio Pinazo Camarlench.[4] On finishing his training he began to send his works to provincial competitions and national fine arts exhibitions, such as the one in Madrid in May 1881, where he presented three Valencian seascapes that went unnoticed, since they did not fit with the official painting of the time, which favored historical and dramatic subjects.

The following year he studied the work of Velázquez and other artists at the Prado Museum.[5] After visiting the Prado Museum, Sorolla painted in 1883 the previously unknown canvas Study of Christ, discovered in 2012, which shows the influence of Velázquez's Christ Crucified.[6][7] Thus began his "realist period," with Gonzalo Salvá as his teacher. At last, in 1883, he won a medal at the Regional Exhibition of Valencia, and in 1884 he achieved glory by winning the Second Class Medal at the National Exhibition with his work Defense of the Monteleón Artillery Park, a dark and melodramatic work made expressly for the exhibition; as he told a colleague: "Here, to make a name for yourself and win medals, you have to paint corpses."

He enjoyed another great success in Valencia with his work El crit del palleter about the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain. As a result, he was awarded a grant by the Provincial Council of Valencia to travel to Rome, where, while working, he became acquainted with Classical and Renaissance art, as well as the great museums, and also made contact with other artists.

With his friend, the painter Pedro Gil, he traveled to Paris during the first half of 1885 and saw Impressionist painting at first hand, which, once he was back in Rome, produced variations in his subject matter and style; he even painted the religious picture The Burial of Christ, which did not have the expected success. He thus came into contact with the European avant-garde, the works of the painters John Singer Sargent, Giovanni Boldini and Anders Zorn making a particular impact on him.

In 1888 he married Clotilde García del Castillo in Valencia, although they would live one more year in Italy, this time in the town of Assisi. Some of his works are associated with that period, among them Selling Melons (Carmen Thyssen Museum Málaga), a time when he painted genre and anecdotal subjects because they sold easily. They were generally small watercolors sold by his dealer, Francisco Jover.

Madrid

Selling Melons (1890), oil on canvas. Carmen Thyssen Museum Málaga.
White Slave Trade (1894), Sorolla Museum, Madrid. The artist had to adapt to the social realism dominant in the competitions of the time. To do so, he kept his genre subject matter, with the titles providing the social denunciation.

In 1889 the painter and his family settled in Madrid and, in barely five years, Sorolla would achieve great renown as a painter. In 1894 he traveled to Paris again, where he developed a pictorial style called "Luminism," which would characterize his work from then on. He began to paint outdoors, masterfully controlling light and combining it with everyday and landscape scenes of Mediterranean life. In works such as The Return from Fishing, The Beach of Valencia or Sad Inheritance he described the feeling produced by the sight of the Mediterranean Sea, conveying the splendor of a morning at the beach with vibrant color and a loose, vigorous style. With Sad Inheritance he received, in 1900, the Grand Prix at the international competition in Paris. In addition, he continued with the painting of social denunciation that had brought him so much success in recent years, with works such as And They Still Say Fish Is Expensive (1894).[8]

In August 1900, while in Valencia, his friend the sculptor Ricardo Causarás Casaña went to visit Sorolla to ask him to pose as a live model for a terracotta and plaster statue, somewhat larger than life, which Causarás intended to show at the General Fine Arts Exhibition in Madrid in 1901. In January 1901 Sorolla spent twenty days in the sculpture studio posing as a model for his friend Causarás, who, besides sculpting his statue, also separately sculpted a portrait bust of his head, in terracotta only, and a plaster cast of Sorolla's right hand in the position of painting. In May 1901 the statue Sorolla was shown at the General Fine Arts Exhibition in Madrid, where the jury awarded it "Consideration of Third Class Medal in Sculpture." It was later exhibited in Valencia from 1901 to 1925 in the main hall of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, and was finally donated to the Valencia City Council, which placed it in the Royal Gardens of the Viveros in Valencia until mid-August 1930.

At that time Valencia named him its favorite and meritorious son, and a street was named after him. After many travels through Europe, mainly England and France, he held an exhibition in Paris with more than five hundred works, which brought him unprecedented international recognition, his painting becoming known throughout Europe and America.

In 1902 he traveled to La Arena, in Asturias, on the recommendation of Agustín Lhardy. He intended to spend a few weeks, but he repeated the experience for three more summers, interested in capturing the different light of the Asturian coast.[9] Around the summer of 1905 he was in Jávea and produced a series of paintings of naked children, one of his most famous series, which later earned him the commission from the Hispanic Society of America. One of the most notable paintings of the series is The Bath, from 1905, which belongs to the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

A new project: the Sorolla house

Joaquín Sorolla in 1908, photograph by Gertrude Käsebier.
Garden of the Sorolla Museum, Madrid.

In 1905 the painter acquired a plot on the Paseo del Obelisco in Madrid (later Calle del General Martínez Campos), next to the residence of the actress María Guerrero. In 1909 he commissioned the project from the architect Enrique María de Repullés y Vargas. Shortly afterward he bought a second adjoining plot, which allowed him to enlarge the built area and add three gardens to the house. Sorolla moved into his new home in Madrid in 1911, after passing through various studios and residences in the city—Plaza del Progreso, Pasaje de la Alhambra, Calle de Miguel Ángel.[10]

His financial success is evident from 1905 onward. In part, it also came from his exhibition in New York in 1909, which achieved unprecedented success, with works such as Afternoon Sun or Swimmers, among many others. He also triumphed in 1911 at the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago.

The Hispanic Society commission

Main article: Vision of Spain
Ayamonte (1919). Tuna fishing. One of the best-known canvases of his series Vision of Spain.

In November of that same year he signed a commission for the Hispanic Society of America, under which he would produce fourteen murals to decorate the rooms of the institution, devoted to the Regions of Spain. With this work, carried out between 1913 and 1919, three and a half meters high by seventy meters long, he raised an indelible monument to Spain, for it depicted characteristic scenes of various Spanish as well as Portuguese provinces. He needed almost all of 1912 to travel throughout the country, making sketches and studies of customs and landscapes. From this undertaking the oils painted in 1916 devoted to children and women on the beaches of Valencia stand out, in which freedom of brushstroke and the light of his homeland predominate. Some examples are Mother and Daughter or Valencian Fisherwoman.

Final period

Portrait of Raquel Meller, 1918.

Another important facet he developed in those years was that of portrait painter. Figures who sat for him included Ramón y Cajal, Pérez Galdós, Machado, his fellow Valencian Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, and politicians such as Emilio Castelar, King Alfonso XIII, President William Howard Taft, the soprano Isabel Brú, as well as a good collection of portraits of his family and some self-portraits.[11]

In 1914 he had been named an academician and, when he finished the work for the Hispanic Society, he worked as a professor of composition and color at the School of Fine Arts of Madrid. In 1920, while painting the portrait of the wife of Ramón Pérez de Ayala in the garden of his house, he suffered a hemiplegia that diminished his physical faculties and prevented him from continuing to paint. He died three years later at his summer residence in Cercedilla on August 10, 1923.[5]

Legacy and followers

In 1932 his house in Madrid was reopened as the Sorolla Museum. His main disciple was Teodoro Andreu.

In June 2023 Correos issued 124,000 stamps commemorating the centenary of his death within the Efemérides series, illustrated with the photographic portrait taken of him by Diego González Ragel.[12]

Work

Formative period (1863–1888)

  • Study of Feet (1876–79)[13]
  • Exotic (1876–79)
  • Conception of los Venerables (1876–79)
  • Sleeping Child (1876–79)
  • Portrait of an Old Man (c. 1880)
  • Seascape (1881)
  • Saint Louis, King of France (1882)
  • Study of Christ (1883)[7]
  • Copy of Velázquez's Head of a Horse (1883)
  • Father Jofré Defending a Madman (1887)

Period of consolidation (1889–1899)

Another Margarita, 1892. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.
And They Still Say Fish Is Expensive! (1894), Prado Museum.

Period of culmination (1900–1910)

Female Nude of 1902, possibly a portrait of Clotilde, painted during his period of culmination. Private collection, Madrid.
Walk on the Beach (1909), Sorolla Museum, Madrid.
Boys on the Beach,[14] 1910. Prado Museum. Scenes of Levantine beaches and the Impressionist effects of reverberating light are characteristic of Sorolla's art.
Joaquín Sorolla photographed in 1909 by Christian Franzen.
Portrait of Joaquín Sorolla and his wife, Clotilde García del Castillo, in 1922–23.

Final period (1911–1920)

My Children's Grandparents. (1905). Museum of Fine Arts of Valencia.

Honors

Sorolla in a sculpture by Paolo Troubetzkoy.

Orders

Positions

Medals

  • Second Class Gold Medal at the Munich International Exhibition for his work Rogation in Burgos – (1892)
  • First Class Medal at the National Exhibition for his work Another Margarita! – (1892)
  • Third Class Gold Medal at the Salon of the Society of French Artists in Paris for his work The Kiss of the Relic – (1893)
  • Second Class Medal at the 4th Vienna International Exhibition for his work The Kiss of the Relic – (1894)
  • Second Class Gold Medal at the Munich International Exhibition for his work Sewing the Sail – (1896)
  • Grand Medal of the Austrian State at the Vienna International Exhibition – (1897)[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Chilvers, Ian (2004). Diccionario del arte del siglo XX. Diccionario Oxford-Complutense (in español). Madrid: Edición de Arturo Colorado Castellary, Editorial Complutense. p. 773. ISBN 978-84-74916003. OCLC 436924875.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Torres González, Begoña (2005). Sorolla (in español). Grupo Editorial Diana. ISBN 84-662--1040-7.
  3. ↑ "La Escuela de Artesanos descubre en una exposición la faceta de estudiante de Joaquín Sorolla". Público (in español). February 6, 2008. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  4. ↑ Moreira, Marta (November 20, 2013). "Benlliure, Sorolla y Blasco Ibáñez, una amistad a tres bandas". ABC (in español). Archived from the original on August 9, 2017. Retrieved August 9, 2017.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Sorolla, Joaquín (2000). Joaquín Sorolla (in español). Barcelona, España: Ediciones Polígrafa. ISBN 84-343-0890-8. OCLC 48691536. Retrieved 2021-05-12.
  6. ↑ Agencia EFE (May 7, 2012). "Investigadores de la Universidad de Lleida descubren un Cristo inédito de Sorolla". El Mundo (in español). EFE. Retrieved August 9, 2017.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Agencia EFE (May 9, 2012). "Identifican una obra inédita de Sorolla". ABC (in español). Retrieved August 9, 2017.
  8. ↑ "¡Aún dicen que el pescado es caro!". Museo del Prado (in español). Retrieved August 9, 2017.
  9. ↑ "El "idilio" cantábrico de Sorolla" (in español). Levante. 2009. Retrieved June 7, 2023.
  10. ↑ "El edificio del museo: la casa Sorolla". Museo Sorolla (in español). Retrieved October 25, 2016.
  11. ↑ Torres González, Begoña (2009). Sorolla: La magia de la luz (in español). Madrid: Editorial LIBSA. p. 332. ISBN 9788466210409.
  12. ↑ "Correos lanza 124.000 sellos conmemorativos por el centenario del fallecimiento de Sorolla". europapress (in español). June 12, 2023. Retrieved June 12, 2023.
  13. ↑ "Joaquín Sorolla, estudiante" (in español). Las Provincias.
  14. ↑ Ficha en Enciclopedia online Museo del Prado. Retrieved January 7, 2013.
  15. ↑ "Obras de juventud de Sorolla" (in español). Levante EMV. October 7, 2015.
  16. ↑ Agencia EFE (August 12, 2011). "El Centro del Carmen exhibirá un Sorolla inédito en Valencia". El Mundo (in español). Unidad Editorial. EFE. Retrieved August 9, 2017.
  17. ↑ "Orden de Isabel la Católica - Medalla". Europeana (in español). February 19, 2014. Retrieved August 9, 2017.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 "Orden Legión de Honor Francesa". Red Digital de Colecciones de Museos de España (in español). Retrieved August 9, 2017.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Orden Legión de Honor Francesa - Medalla". Europeana (in español). February 19, 2014. Retrieved August 9, 2017.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Cruz de San Olaf". Red Digital de Colecciones de Museos de España (in español). Retrieved August 9, 2017.
  21. ↑ Figueroa, Álvaro (November 29, 1902). "Real decreto concediendo la Gran Cruz de la Orden civil de Alfonso XII, á D. Joaquín Sorolla" (PDF). Gaceta de Madrid (in español). 4 (333): 721. Retrieved August 9, 2017.
  22. ↑ "Medalla Orden Corona de Italia". Red Digital de Colecciones de Museos de España (in español). Retrieved August 9, 2017.
  23. ↑ "Medalla Orden Corona de Italia - Medalla". Europeana (in español). February 19, 2014. Retrieved August 9, 2017.

Bibliography

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