Sorolla, born at Valencia in the warm sunshine of southern Spain, is one
of the most joyous and spontaneous artists who ever slapped paint onto
canvas. The first exhibition of his work in this country was held at the
Hispanic Museum in New York in 1909; and there has probably never been in
America an exhibition of paintings crowded with such enthusiastic
thousands of people. As one came into the exhibition gallery, one was
fairly dazzled by the high key and the headlong virtuosity of the
paintings which lined the walls; one felt a sense of heightened vitality.
We are told that Sorolla studied in the Academies of Valencia and Rome,
and finally that he was influenced by Bastien Lepage, Menzel, and by the
old Spanish and Italian masters whom he copied. It is hard to think of
him in connection with any such schools or painters. His bold brushwork,
his unaffected and individual handling of bright sunlight, his high animal
spirits, are like no other painter we know, unless it be the Scandinavian
Zorn.
The subjects chosen by Sorolla are varied. He paints fashionable
portraits, and occasionally landscape. Mostly he paints scenes on the
sunny Mediterranean shores of Spain. Into these he introduces figures,
sometimes subordinated to the sea, more often as the principal interest of
the picture. Sometimes he shows fishermen working at their boats, as in
the stunning canvas in the Metropolitan Museum. When he does, they are no
bent-backed toilers, but joyous, active, triumphant creatures. More often
Sorolla loves to paint people playing on the beach, their light clothes
spotted cleverly against the bright sand or waves; or best of all,
children! Healthy and full of vivid glee, they race along the beach, lie
on the sand in the wash of reaching breakers, or swim frog-like in the
green transparency of sheltered water.
[Landscape. Alexander Nasmyth, 1758-1840]