Walk on the Beach

Description

It has a height of 205 cm and a width of 200 cm. Shown are the wife and the eldest daughter of the painter during a walk on the beach of Valencia. The painting is part of the collection of the Museo Sorolla in Madrid.

Analysis

In more than four square meters, Joaquín Sorolla shows two women during a walk by the sea. The 205 x 200 cm large screen has an almost square format and is unusually monumental for a beach view. The two depicted in life size women, Sorolla's wife Clotilde and his eldest daughter Maria were the models. Sorolla painted the scenery at Playa de El Cabanyal beach in his hometown of Valencia. Both women are seen with a slightly forwardly inclined bodies of the page so that they appear to move toward the right edge. While the head of the reproduced left in the painting wife is straight aligned to the right edge, the daughter Maria has slightly turned his head to the right shoulder and looking toward the image viewer. Mother and daughter both wearing long white sundresses. The elegant presentation, which also includes each a straw hat and with his mother, a parasol, is typical of the fashion of the time around 1910. The 19-year-old Maria has a simple floor-length dress that emphasized her slender silhouette. On the neck the dress is finished by stand-up collar. The tight-fitting sleeves are manufactured in contrast to the rest of the dress of a more transparent white cloth, which shine through the skin. Of similar material is a curtain which is mounted on a mounted below the chest large ring. The sea wind the curtain weighs behind the daughter arabesques below the back panel in the air. Under the dress looks out a brown leather shoe, on its side reflections emphasize the smooth surface. In his right hand Mary holds a yellow straw hat with a wide, sweeping brim, decorated with purple colored flowers and a turquoise bow. Mary has pinned her brown hair into a knot, so that her face comes into its own.

The border behind the daughter Clotilde Sorolla also has a white dress. When her hips is accented by a white belt. This both the breast as well as the buttocks lot clearer contours than the daughter. Her dress is made with cropped sleeves, which can be hidden if required with an associated jacket. This jacket also made of white fabric was placed over the angled front of the abdomen left forearm Clotilde. In her left hand she holds a white open umbrella, which is inclined to the ground on the left side. Under Clotilde dress look two elegant white women's shoes produced with small heels. On the head Clotilde wearing a straw hat, which is also decorated with purple colored flowers. In addition, a greenish-transparent veil is draped over the entire hat, falling forward over her face and it is wrapped and moved backward by the wind almost horizontally in the air. Clotilde has bent his right arm upward and holds his hand to lying on the shoulder veil. This creates the impression that they must adjust to moving from the wind veil new or even hold. From the head of the wife but little can be seen. Large parts of the reproduced in the profile face are in shadow and only on the chin falls a brighter sunlight. Also, the wide sweeping hat obscured the hair almost completely. Just behind the adorned with a pearl earring is a bit indicated by the dark hair. While the young face of the daughter Maria is looking directly into the sun, the face of the 25-year-old mother is hidden by fog and shadow of the hat. The clothes and accessories featuring the two women as members of the upper class who spend their free time in the summer with mild temperatures and light winds.

Mother and daughter standing a few meters away from the sea on an ocher expanse of sand that determines the foreground at the bottom. Unlike the people depicted, the painter has reproduced the sand surface in short strokes moving. Behind the two women is the seamless transition from the beach to the sea. The perspective of the viewer is slightly raised so that no horizon is visible. Instead, the beach and the sea form a curtain-like background and weißkräuselnden spur a wave at the top of the screen replaces the horizon. The sea shimmers in different shades of blue, the Sorolla has applied in elongated brushstrokes. Before chest Clotilde sea has a pale blue color, behind their backs there are rather darker shades of blue. Dimly is the area to the right of the daughter, where the turquoise surface of the water is difficult to distinguish from the shore. The dominant color of the image is the white of the dress and the parasol. Sorolla has this White mixed, modeled on the French impressionists with many other colors. So also blue, yellow, lilac or orange shares are in the White included to identify both the light and shadow effects. By bright whites, the figures clearly stand out from the rest of the image. The light is characteristic of the early evening of a summer day in the Mediterranean. The already low sun appears from the direction of the image viewer on the two sides to seeing women whose long shadows loom on the beach behind them. Playback of these lighting effects under the southern sun are typical Valenciano for Luminismo, one in Spain resulting from the Impressionism special form of Neo-Impressionism, whose main representative was Joaquín Sorolla.

Background to the creation of the painting

The 1909 was extremely successful for Sorolla. He had already been widely received recognition for his paintings and received awards not only in Spain but also in France and Germany, but the year 1909, a high point in his career. On the invitation of the American art collector Archer M. Huntington, he traveled with his wife and the two older children Maria and Joaquín beginning of the year to New York City. Here Huntington had previously opened the Hispanic Society of America in the year and in their rooms should Sorolla show the first exhibition of his work in the United States. It was Sorolla's first trip across the Atlantic and later adjusting success unpredictable. On February 4, 1909, the opening of the exhibition took place and initially came only a few visitors. This changed as gradually appeared to very positive reports in the newspapers. When closed the exhibition on March 8 had a total of 169,000 visitors the works of Sorolla's seen. Encouraged by the overwhelming response, the issue in a slightly modified form was also shown in Buffalo and Boston. During his stay in the United States Sorolla received 20 portrait commissions, including that of the straight into office reached US President William Howard Taft, he in the White House in Washington, D.C. visited. In May 1909, as Sorolla left the United States, he had a total of 195 images sold - including two works to the Metropolitan Museum of Art - and the enormous sum of 181,760 US dollars taken.

Back in Europe, Sorolla held initially in Paris and exhibited in art exhibition of the Société des Artistes Français, the painting Evening Sun from 1903, an image of fishermen from Valencia as a motif. About Madrid he traveled to Valencia, where he saw his daughter Elena and the rest of the family. He attended the local art exhibition Exposicion Regional and received a second award for the work exhibited there. Inspired by the success of his trip to America and the good reviews he received at the exhibitions in Paris and Valencia, began a prolific summer for Sorolla. He planned in 1911 to travel again on exhibition tour in the United States and needed this new painting. He stayed until the end of September in Valencia and created in these summer months "some of his best and most spectacular beach scenes," as his biographer and granddaughter Blanca Pons-Sorolla notes. The resulting paintings of this summer beach walk provide a climax in Sorolla's career according to José Luis Alcaide.

Sorolla's beach paintings

The born in Valencia Joaquín Sorolla was life on the sea since his youth familiar. In his early work, there is the traditional port View Marina, Barcos en el puerto with which he made his debut in the art exhibition Expsoición National in Madrid in 1881. In the 1890s he attacked repeatedly the subject of fishermen from Valencia. In some very large paintings he showed fishermen bring their catch ashore or pull with oxen their boat to the beach. In addition, he portrayed boatbuilders, Reuse Flicker or fish saleswomen. Not the glamorous life with its leisure activities, but working people at sea were the focus of his paintings. For this work he received very positive reviews and were awarded prizes. In addition, these works brought international success. So the French government bought the painting La vuelta de la presca from 1895 and the Berlin National Gallery acquired Pescadores Valencianos of 1895.

In 1900 Sorolla began to paint bathing children in water. In 1904 paintings created La hora del baño Sorolla linked the topics fishing and bathing children and shows between one fishing boat and standing in the water oxen naked children swimming. In the foreground one of the children comes from the sea and is expected of a young woman stretches out a white cloth to dry the wet child. Already this picture captures Sorolla parts of the painting beach walk anticipate. So the white fabric plays a central role: The labor of the substance in the wind is already the main subject, the shore area between the water and beach has no clear contours and the whole picture is bathed in the sunlight of early evening.

That same summer Sorolla portrayed his wife Clotilde at the booth of Valencia. In Clotilde en la playa the wife sitting on a stool near the sea in a white dress. Here the later recurring in beach stroll umbrella is already an important prop. The spanned screen casts shadows on her face, which is hidden by a veil in the later image. In this picture the painter has taken a slightly elevated position, so that no background horizon line is visible. Instead of the beach in the foreground goes directly into the waves of the sea, without the sky can be seen.

In 1906, Sorolla and his family visited the northern Spanish Biarritz. In group portrait Paseo de Faro it shows several women during a walk along the cliffs above the beach. The painter shows here the beach and washed around by underwater rock formation as a background motive. In front of the frieze-like image that women are loosely arranged side by side. Again, the white clothes dominates the scene, only the young girl in the center is granted as an outcry a flashy red jacket. Large hats and umbrellas are important props also in this walk.

In 1909 he returned to the beach in Valencia and found again motifs depicting people at sea. In portrait Elena en la playa Sorolla portrayed his youngest daughter in white dress with the beach as a background motive. In this portrait, as well as at about the same time beach walk, Sorolla painted the meeting of land and sea, the waves on the sea, the wind in moving dress and the hat and the light of a summer day in the Mediterranean.

Provenance

The painting was until the artist's death in its possession. In his will he bequeathed the picture his son Joaquín Sorolla García, who was the first director of the decorated in the former home of his parents Museo Sorolla deduced 1931st Sorolla's wife Clotilde had the Spanish government inherited the house together with the inventory, set up with the support herein a Joaquín Sorolla museum dedicated. The generous example of his mother followed the son Joaquín Sorolla García, who after his death in 1948 the Spanish State inherited the painting beach walk with other works of the Father. Since that time, it belongs to the collection of the Museo Sorolla in Madrid.