"^Z 1 '^*^ • M * * X \ ' S -■ '-V(. < - 4', I'm CORNELL UNIVffiSn^ LIBRARffiS ITHACA, N. Y 14853 Fine Ans Library Sibley HaU Cornell University Library NO S13.S71H6711911 Catalogue of paintings by Joaquin Sorol 3 1924 016 178 042 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924016178042 THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO CATALOGUE OF PAINTINGS BY JOAQUIN SOROLLA Y BASTIDA UNDER THE MANAGEMENT OF THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA FEBRUARY J4 TO MARCH 12, 1911 971 ^^ c nil \ The rights of reproduction of all pictures in the exhibition is reserved by The Hispanic Society of America JOAQUIN SOROLLA JOAQUIN SOROIvLA, the son of humble parents, was born at Valencia, Spain, on February 27, 1863. Two years later, the cholera epidemic which was raging in that city carried off both his father and his mother, and the orphan, together with his infant sister, was adopted by his aunt upon the mother's side. Dona Isabel Bastida, and her husband, Don Jos6 Piqueres. When Joaquin was of an age to go to school, he mani- fested little inclination for his studies proper, though he revealed a stealthy and incorrigible craze for scrawling enibryonic drawings in his copy-books, until, impressed by the precocious merit and persistence of this extra- pedagogic labor, one of his masters was intelligent enough to overlook his inattention to the tasks appointed him, and even made him surreptitious presents of ma- terial for the prosecution of his hobby. In course of tirne, since young Sorolla made no visible progress at his lessons, his uncle, A^ho was by trade a locksmith, removed the boy from school and placed him in his work-shop, while yet allowing him to attend some drawing- classes, held at a local school for artisans; and here his resolution and his talent swept off all the prizes; so that, on reaching his fifteenth year, he was permitted 9 to renounce the locksmith's shop and finally devote him- self to studying art. He now became a student of the Academia de Bellas Artes of San Carlos, which is also at Valencia, and won, almost immediately, the triple prize for coloring, draw- ing from the model, and perspective. About this time, too, he received assistance from a philanthropic gentle- man named Garcia (whose daughter. Dona Clotilde, he subsequently married), and so was able to remain for several years at the academy. During these years he visited Madrid on three occasions, and exhibited, first of all, three paintings which aroused no curiosity, and afterward his earliest important work, namely, a canvas of large dimensions entitled "The Second of May." The second visit to the Spanish capital was longer than the other two, and young SoroUa utilized it to his best advantage by copying the masterpieces of Velazquez and Ribera in the Prado Gallery. "The Second of May," which represents the des- perate resistance of the Madrilenos to the French invad- ing army, during the Spanish War of Independence, is by no means a flawless work, although the drawing is correct and spirited; nor is it even an unusually pre- cocious effort for a painter who was more than twenty years of age. Yet it contained one striking innovation; for it was painted irf the open air, SoroUa choosing for his natural and informal studio the arena of the spacious bull-ring of Valencia, where he enwreathed his models with dense smoke in scrupulous reconstitution of au- thentic scenes of war. This painting is now in the Biblioteca-Museo Balaguer, founded by the eminent Catalan poet, historian, and statesman, Victor Balaguer, at Villanueva y Geltru, a town in Catalufia. In the same year (1884), another of his paintings won for him the scholarship ofEered by his native town for studying art in Italy. Accordingly, he repaired to Rome and stayed there for some months, proceeding thence to Paris, and returning not long afterward to the Italian capital. However, at the exhibitions, held in Paris, of the works of Bastien-I^epage and Menzel, "SoroUa's eyes were opened to the revolution which was being effected in the history of modern painting, ' ' and even after his return to Italy, this novel and regenerative movement in French art continued to engage his preference. Al- ready, therefore, in the opening stage of his career, the youthful and spontaneous realist of Valencia — the com- patriot of Goya and the fellow-citizen of Spagnoletto — was captivated and encouraged by the parallel yet inde- pendent realism of a German and a French contem- porary. On his return to Rome, where false and academic methods still pretended to their old supremacy, SoroUa, led by duty rather than by desire, produced a large re- ligious painting titled "The Burial of the Saviour," marked by his wonted excellence of color and of line, but not appreciably inspired by any sentiment of deep devotion. This work, upon its exhibition at Madrid in 1887, attracted some attention, but was not rewarded with a medal. Two other paintings, also shown about this time, disclose the true direction of SoroUa's sym- pathy. The one, titled "Un Boulevard de Paris," some- what impressionistic in the manner of Pissaro, depicts a busy evening scene outside a large caf6. The other sub- ject is a sketch of a Parisian girl, treated in the simple, realistic style of Bastien-Lepage, and therefore quite emancipated from the harsh eclecticism of the Roman school. While visiting Italy for the second time, SoroUa made a long sojourn at Assisi, copying the old Italian masters, as well as doing original work subtly yet hap- pily associated with the peasant-author of the "Saison d'Octobre." During the next three years he painted, among a number of other works, "A Procession at Bur- gos in the Sixteenth Century,'' "After the Bath" (a life-sized female figure standing nude against a back- ground of white marble), and the well-known "Otra Margarita" ("Another Marguerite"). This latter, now at St. Louis, U. S. A., represents a girl belonging to the humblest class, who has been guilty of infanticide, and whom the Civil Guard convey as a prisoner to re- ceive or to perform her sentence. The scene is a third- class railway wagon, bare, uncushioned, comfortless — such as is still not obsolete in Spain. The head of this unhappy "Marguerite" is drooping on her breast and, with her blanched, emaciated face and limp, dejected form, denotes the utmost depth of human woe. Her hands are bound, but a fold oi her coarse shawl has partly fallen or been drawn across them. A bundle lies beside her on the seat, which contains her change of clothing. Though it is painted with care, this work has scarcely any scope for detail. Nothing relieves its melancholy bareness save the spots upon the prisoner's cheap print dress, and the pattern on the kerchief. This pitiful and somber scene is treated with a poig- nant ' realism, yet with an equally eloquent restraint. Emotion here is not obtruded, as in the case of mediocre genre: it is not ostentatious, but suggestive. Flawless in technical fidelity, the figure of the girl discloses that her moral weariness has overcome her physical. Her attitude of collapse proceeds, not from a muscular fa- tigue, as much as from an agony of remorse which has its fountain in her very soul. One of her two custodians marks her with a meditative and compassionate eye, puzzled, it may be, at the vagaries of the law devised by mafi, and speculating why its undivided wrath must here be visited upon the frail accomplice. Other important paintings executed by SoroUa at this 13 time are named "The Happy Day," "Kissing the Relic," and "Blessing the Fishing-Boat. The subjects of the latter two are indicated by their titles. A beau- tiful and touching moment is recorded in ' 'The Happy Day." A little fisher-girl, who has received her first Communion on this "happy morn," kisses, on reaching home, the hand of her bfind grand-father. The cottage- door is open, and the sunlight, streaming through, lav- ishes its pure caresses on the gossamer clouds of her communion-veil . In this or the succeeding year, two of SoroUa's paint- ings were exhibited at the Salon. Their titles are "The White-Slave Traffic" and "The Fishing-Boat's Return." The former is at present in America ; the latter (which had been' classified "Hors Concours") was purchased for the I,uxembourg. The subjects of these two great paintings offer an ex- traordinary contrast. The figures in the first are weary women, huddled together, dozing and lethargic, in a narrow, low-toned, somber railway carriage. But in the other work, the busy characters that splash and plunge about the water '-s edge inspire a very surfeit of vitality ; fishermen and cattle bringing in the boat are enlivened and illuminated by the glorious sunshine of Valencia. Between that period and the present day, we are con- fronted, in Sorolla's art, with marvelous, well-nigh mir- aculous fecundity and quality, interpreting all aspects H and developments of contemporary Spain — portraits of royal personages, nobles, commoners, the artist's wife and children, statesmen, novelists, poets, scientists, or soldiers ; landscape and prospects of the naked sea ; the bright and tender joys of infant life, the playful scenes of boyhood and of girlhood, sorrows and problems and anxieties of later age, the sordid schemes of evil- doers, the strenuous toilers of the deep, the simple cul- tivators of the soil, the village cares and pastimes of the peasantry. Such paintings are (to quote the titles of a very few), "Sewing the Sail," shown at Madrid, the Salon, Munich (Gold Medal). Vienna (Gold Medal), and the Paris Exhibition, where the artist was awarded the Grand Prix for his "Triste Herencia." This is now the pro- perty of the Venice Corporation. "The Beach of Val- encia," "A Scientific Experiment," "The Raisin- dressers," "The Wounded Fisherman, "A Sad Inheri- tance," and "The Bath." This latter represents the seaside at Valencia, ' 'whose manifold charms this artist renders so felicitously. A woman with her back to us unfolds a sheet, in which she is about to wrap a baby whom another woman holds. The little one is naked, and his limbs are stiffened by the cold sensation of his bath. Behind them is the sea, furrowed by fishing-boats with swollen sails, illuminated by the golden glory of a Spanish summer's morning." '5 This jocund theme presents a striking contrast with "A Sad Inheritance." Here also is the fore-shore of Valencia, though it is specked and vivified no longer by those dancing sails and animated figures. An air of sudden and depressing gloom seems to have overcrept the water and the sunshine. Even so quick are nature's moods to echo back our own. For here are not the vigorous fisher-folk, able to work and strive, able to win their independent bread. Instead of such, we contemp- late a score or so of imbecile or crippled boys, the in- mates of a house of refuge for the cast-off children of depraved and unknown parents. The stern, robust figure of a priest, towering above this orphaned and pathetic gathering of frail humanity, extends a shielding arm over some two or three. Weighed down by help- lessness and shame, these joyless creatures are not scurrying through the sand, or blithely splashing in the breakers. The gaiety of healthy boyhood is denied to them. Their drooping attitudes are inert, morose, and plaintive, while, as it were infected by the agony and pity of it all, the color of the sea is leaden, and the sun throws out no cheerful and invigorating radiance, but is merely sultry. IyEonard Williams l6 ^^^^ ■ ■ ■i WBS^ HI ■ 1^^ I r V 1 1 ifeft „ ^gSk 4 i /j^ i ^^ 1^- '- *""'^" *«mr '•^i^k ^BBPHS^^ r^^^^ M HV I^^H MlWf'l ^Bmt^^'* ^^» w ^ ^ m 1 v<^ 'jHHm t^ J^||^^^ |h ji I 1 1 f&\ 1 "U Bill 1 1 f^WWfc \ j 1 Ik^^^^E i 9 H^^^'^'^m 1 E ■H 1 1 S 1 1 $ Pepilla and her daughter. Gipsies 7 The two sisters, Valencia 1 1 SeSora de Sorolla 1 8 Maria in maotills 27 The wounded foot, Valencia 13 N & I to t k., ', ' ^' ^ ''^ ' ■■;:;:,:; W. ■ ■ # -4»- '"^-^-^ :!ES£«i0i^^^^^B^^^. 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Gitanas Pepilla and her daughter. Gipsies 6 Joaquin Las dos hermanas, Valencia The two sisters, Valencia Antes del bano, Valencia Before the bath, Valencia Una gitana A gipsy 10 ^inos sobre la arena, Valencia Children upon the sand, Valencia 1 1 Senora de SoroUa 12 El gato y el perro The cat and the dog 13 Sefiora de Sorolla en la playa, Valencia Senora de Sorolla on the beach, Valencia 14 Nifios en el mar, Valencia Children in the water, Valencia 15 Pescador de Lequeitio A fisherman of Lequeitio 16 Elena saltando, La Granja Helen jumping rope. La Granja 17 Elena en la playa Helen on the beach 18 Maria de mantilla Maria in mantilla 19 Tirando de la barca, Valencia Hauling in the boat, Valencia 20 Luz plateada en la playa, Valencia Silvery light on the beach, Valencia 21 Sol matutino, Valencia Early morning sun, Valencia 22 Sol de la tarde, Valencia Afternoon sun, Valencia 23 Dfa gris, Valencia A grey day, Valencia 24 El balandrito, Valencia The toy boat, Valencia 25 Elena Helen 26 En la sidreria, Zarauz In the cider mill, Zarauz 27 La herida del pie, Valencia The wounded foot, Valencia 28 El bano en I