On the sand, Zarauz beach

Sorolla, who had been fond of photography since the years when he worked as an assistant in the studio of his father-in-law Antonio García Peris, used in this painting a type of composition that would be unimaginable without the habit of looking at photographic snapshots: the figures are cut arbitrarily, unaware that they are being photographed-portraits, which gives the painting an impression of total naturalness. Although this is an effect that Sorolla particularly valued, few of his works take it to this extreme. The result is an image that is surprisingly modern, as the absence of a background, of a horizon, makes the figures seem to crowd together with the picture plane itself, giving it great prominence; the blurring of the faces blurs the figures and turns them into mere elements of an arbitrary composition of form and colour.