We know Sorolla mostly for his awesome
paintings of the sea and the beach, and for his magnificent “The Vision of
Spain”, but he was also a great portraitist! Not only have kids playing in the
beach posed for him, but also several illustrious people of his era, from King
Alfonso XIII of Spain and the Queen, president Taft of USA, men and women of
high society, intellectuals, literates, doctors…
He didn’t like being a portraitist, but he
needed to make a living. During summer,
he’d paint outdoors, and in winter he’d not leave his atelier in Madrid to
paint his portraits. He was really fast carrying them out: it’s always said
that the painter gets tired, and the poser does so too… and it’s also needed to
portray the instantaneity of the moment, which gets lost when the portrayed one
gets tired of being in the same position.
Even though he painted all this because he just
had to, it wasn’t the same way when it came to his family. In those paintings
he would express all his devotion to his wife, in first place, and then, to
their children. He painted them in every kind of situation, like a diary of the
life in his home.
Out of his enormous amount of works, I chose “My
family”, a painting with a lot of peculiarities, that tell us more about his
personality and his conception of painting.
Remember that if you are using a tablet or a smartphone and you
can't see this presentation, you can access to an alternative version of
it on Youtube.
Sources: Lorente,
V.-Pons-Sorolla, B. Epistolarios de Joaquín Sorolla.
Barcelona, Anthropos, 2008;
Pons Sorolla, B. Joaquín Sorolla. Barcelona,
Ed.Polígrafa, 2005;
Varios.
Sargent/Sorolla. Madrid, Fundación Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2006
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