Blanca Pons-Sorolla – författare

A new survey of the best works by the elusive and spectacular Spanish Impressionist Joaquín Sorolla. Often compared to his contemporary, the American artist John Singer Sargent, Joaquín Sorolla (1863–1923) was a master draftsman and painter of landscapes, formal portraits, and monumental, historically themed canvases. Highly influenced by French Impressionism, the Valencian artist was a master plein-air painter known for his luminous seaside scenes of frolicking youths and for vivid depictions of Spanish rural life and its pleasures and customs. This beautifully designed and produced volume brings together one hundred of Sorolla’s major paintings, selected by his great-granddaughter Blanca Pons-Sorolla, the foremost authority on the artist. Benefiting from close proximity to the artist and his personal archives, she presents an in-depth essay that explores Sorolla’s life, work, and remarkable international legacy. With virtually all of the artist’s previous publications now out of print, this much-anticipated volume is an important addition to the literature on this great Spanish master.

Like Claude Monet s celebrated plein air landscapes at Giverny, the series collected in this book represents among the best-loved examples of Joaquin Sorolla s (1863-1923) work, and a window into the Spanish painter s quest to capture the essence of a garden. Described by Monet as the master of light, Sorolla and his landscapes, formal portraits, and historically themed canvases drew comparisons to contemporary American painter John Singer Sargent. Sorolla had achieved renown on both sides of the Atlantic for grand scenes of Spanish life when he began a personal series of garden works, presented completely for the first time in this publication. Painted at the palaces of La Granja and the Alcazar in Seville, the Alhambra and Generalife in Granada, and at the painter s home in Madrid, these Impressionist works allowed Sorolla to apply his signature loose brushwork and training as a photographer s lighting assistant to gardens and the sculptures, architecture, and sitters that frame and animate them. Sorolla depicted reflections in fountains and pools, the sunlight dappling his glamorous sitters, sprays of orange blossoms, and shaded blue-and-white tile as he endeavoured to render the radiant peace of a summer afternoon.