Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863 - 1923) was a Spanish painter who excelled in the painting of portraits, landscapes and monumental works of social and historical themes. His most typical works are characterized by a dexterous representation of the people and landscape under the bright sunlight of sunlit water and Spanish countryside.

1. Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida
Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863 - 1923) was a
Spanish painter who excelled in the painting
of portraits, landscapes and monumental
works of social and historical themes.
His most typical works are characterized by a
dexterous representation of the people and
landscape under the bright sunlight of sunlit
water and Spanish countryside.

2. Early Life
• Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida was born in
Valencia in 1863.
• Sorolla was the eldest child born to a tradesman, also named
Joaquin Sorolla, and his wife, Concepción Bastida.
• His parents died from cholera when he was two years old,
and so he was raised by his aunt and her husband.
• His uncle, a locksmith, wanted him to follow his profession
• He showed promise as a artist from an early age

3. Early life
• Sorolla studied at the Saint Charles Royal
Academy of Fine Arts of Valencia where
he was winning major prizes and met
Impressionist painter Ignacio Pinazo, from
whom he would take the influence of
painting ‘en plein air’.
• Sorolla’s talent and hard work was
brought to the attention of Antonia
Garcia, a pioneer in photography based in
Valencia and he went to work in his
studio.

4. Early life
• At the age of eighteen he traveled to Madrid, vigorously
studying master paintings in the Museo del Prado.
• He completed his military service, at age twenty-two.
• Frustrated by not being able to win prizes with his sea
paintings, he deliberately painted historical war subjects
which he knew would please the judges.

5. En la costa Valencia, 1884

6. The death of Pedro Velarde y Santillán during the
defence of the Monteleon Artillery Barracks, 1884

7. Early works
They did.
• He then obtained a grant which enabled a four-year term to study
painting in Rome where he was able to observe the works of the Old
Masters, and then to Paris, where he became in contact with the
French Impressionists’ work.
• In 1888, Sorolla returned to Valencia to marry Clotilde García del
Castillo, whom he had first met in 1879, while working in her father's
studio.
• They had three children together Maria, born in 1890, Joaquín, born
in 1892, and Elena, born in 1895

8. Another Marguerite (1892)
His first striking success
was achieved with
‘Another Marguerite’
(1892), which was
awarded a gold medal at
the National Exhibition
in Madrid, then first
prize at the Chicago
International Exhibition,
where it was acquired
and subsequently
donated to the
Washington University
Museum

9. The Return from Fishing (1894)
• His picture ‘The Return
from Fishing’ (1894) was
much admired at the Paris
Salon and was acquired by
the state for the Musée du
Luxembourg.
• It indicated the direction of
his mature output.

10. A Research (1897)
• In 1897, Sorolla painted ‘A
Research’ of his friend
Simarro - linking Art and
Science.
• This painting was presented
at the National Exhibition of
Fine Arts held in Madrid in
that year and Sorolla won the
Prize of Honor.

11. New York
• Sorolla travelled to New York
where he was spotted by Archer
Huntington where he was
commissioned to paint a series of
monumental canvasses that
depict the regional costumes,
landscape, and characters of his
native Spain.
• From his huge 'Vision of Spain' we
see the larger than lifesize 'Bride
from Lagartera' and 'Types from
Salamanca' that encapsulate
Sorolla’s fascination with regional
costume.

12. Quotes from Sorolla
• If ever a painter wrought a miracle of illusion with
brush and pigment that painter was Velazquez in his
'Las Meninas,' at the Prado in Madrid.
• Now, I have studied this picture with a lens, and what
do I find?
• Why, that Velazquez got that marvelous atmospheric
background by one broad sweep of his flowing brush,
charged with thin color so thin that you can feel the
very texture of the canvas through it.
• Nature, the sun itself, produces color effects on this
same principle, but instantaneously.
• The impression of these evanescent visions is what
we make desperate attempts to catch and fix by any
means at hand.
• At such moments I am unconscious of materials, of
style, of rules, of everything that intervenes between
my perception and the object or idea perceived.

13. Sorolla’s painting style
• Although he was excellent in portraiture,
with time, he had come to hate indoors to a
point in which a studio was, according to his
own words, ‘only a garage; a place in which
to store pictures and repair them, never a
place in which to paint them’.
• His everyday beach scenes, often
representing his family, are peaceful yet vital.
In them, time seems to pass slowly, yet
steadily. The slow movement is present in the
soft waves of the sea and the dresses being
pushed by the breeze.

14. Sorolla’s painting style
• However, there was nothing slow in
the impromptu motions of the brush;
Sorolla himself said he would not
have been able to paint if he had to
do it slowly.
• The speed of his brush strokes also
allowed him to work on large
canvases only taking a day or two to
finish a painting, six at the most.

15. Sorolla’s painting style
• Sorolla explicitly hated darkness and
thought that painters were not able
to reproduce sunlight as it is.
• Sorolla specialized in light and it can
be appreciated in the dresses of
young girls and the reflection on the
inviting water of the sea.
• His style became known as the
Valencian Luminism

16. Sorolla’s painting style
• Sorolla did not have a set idea of how
a painting would turn out before he
started, preferring to build up the
composition as he went along.
• According to him, the secret of his
ability to depict elusive moments in
hurried yet elegant strokes was based
on observation, or as he once wrote
to his wife: ‘I always paint with my
eyes’.

17. Selling
melons
(1888)

18. Sewing
the Sail
1896.

19. Return from fishing 1898

20. Clotilde in a grey dress
(1900)

21. Mother
(1900)

22. Fisherwomen from Valencia
(1903)

23. Bathing
Time,
1904

24. Clotilde
on the beach
(1904)

25. The White
Boat, Javea,
1905

26. Maria on the
beach at
Biarritz
(1906)

27. Capturing
the moment
(1906)

28. The Horse’s
bath (1909)

29. Self Portrait (1909)

30. Walk on the Beach,
1909

31. The little sailing
boat (1909)

32. Palace of
Pond, Royal
Gardens in
Seville (1910)

33. Under the
awning
(1910)

34. The wounded foot
(1909)

35. Swimmers,
Javea
(1905)

36. The pink robe (1916)

37. The skipping
rope (1907)

38. Time for a bathe,
Valencia (1909)

39. After bathing
(1915)

40. After the bathe
(1916)

41. Breakwater,
San Sabastian
(1918)

42. The Tuna
catch
(1919)

43. Joaquin
Sorolla
García