Joaquín Sorolla: 12 works

'This canvas is an exceptional technical feat and also one of the best examples of Sorolla's ability to transmit intense physical sensations and equally intense emotion through his handling of light and colour.'

'In this canvas Sorolla blends the portrait with painting en plein air, a formula which he applied preferably to his family.'

'This canvas, painted during the summer of 1910 on the beach at Zarauz, shows the whole Sorolla family, under an awning which is out of sight.'

'The portraits of Maria were apparently particularly sought after and her family jokingly called her 'the breadwinner'.Sorolla's eternal fascination with the modulations of light is seen here in his use of contre-jour, so difficult to analyse because of the dazzle it produces; this is one of the best examples, with the effect of the reflected light reverberating on the water, taking up half the canvas and competing with the figure of Maria, which with the backlit effect appears weightless, almost dematerialized.'

'Many versions of After the bathe or Coming out of the water can be found in Sorolla's work.'

'A few months earlier, in February 1909, Sorolla had held an individual exhibition at the Hispanic Society of America, which was acclaimed by critics and public and with unprecedented sales of his paintings had ensured the artist's financial security and his professional future.Although Sorolla painted this portrait in his studio, immersed in his work, he shows himself wearing an elegant grey felt hat, in a long tradition of self- portraits where artists depict themselves formally dressed, rather than in their working clothes.In this portrait, intended for his immediate family, the artist allows himself considerable technical freedom, using the qualities of the oil paints to maximum advantage, combining almost liquid brushstrokes with other areas of heavy impasto, attracting the attention of the viewer with his gesture and the intensity of his gaze.'

'A work where Sorolla started his garden paintings which would later become some of his most important works.'

'The firm ( J. Sorolla Bastida), is written in the lower right side'

'Sorolla recognised these as signs of "modern life".'

'During the years when Sorolla was working on the commission for the Hispanic Society, his summer holidays let him go back to his real love : painting in his own home territory, in the open air, from real life. Back in Valencia, he took up his favourite themes again, scenes of the beach and fisherfolk, but by now the almost epic dimensions of the work he was engaged in for the huge commission had altered his style.'

'Joaquín Sorolla García, Sorolla's second child and only son, was born in Valencia in 1892. As his mother wished, he was made the first director of the Museo Sorolla, and in his will left an important part of his father's work and the paintings he himself had inherited to the Fundacion Museo Sorolla.Joaquín is portrayed here as a fashionable, elegantly dressed young man.'

'Sorolla highlights the explosion of colour and the play of light filtering through the plants in medium-sized canvases resolved with spontaneity.'