Joaquín Sorolla

The definitive monograph on the Spanish master of light

Containing over 300 reproductions of his most important works, Joaquín Sorolla is an essential survey on this ever-popular painter. It includes an in-depth essay by Blanca Pons-Sorolla, as well as an illustrated chronology.

Starting out as a painter of works intended for the salon and national exhibitions, Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863–1923) very soon developed a style of open-air painting of his own which, though not connected stylistically with the Barbizon School, nevertheless pursued the same approach, as a result of which he came to be known as a Spanish impressionist painter.

He began to devote himself entirely to this style in 1900, painting landscapes, views of cities, studies of nature, seascapes and garden scenes in which he demonstrated his tremendous skill in capturing the effects of light. One such painting reproduced here, Sewing the Sail, exemplifies Sorolla's skill with light in the abstract. A pure white sail captures the shimmering pattern of the sun through garden plants. Excluding the plants, their pots, the seamstresses and the bright pastel-colored seaside landscape in the background, the sail on close examination betrays Sorolla's complex coloration―a precise mix of pinks, blues and yellows―that gives the viewer the impression of a simple white sail with sun and shade.