JOAQUIN SOROLLA

The Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923) captured the light of southern Spain in colour and captured fleeting moments in his own special way with light-dark contrasts, modern colour compositions, depicting the full beauty of nature in all its light conditions, joy and sorrow and the closeness with his family, close observation of young boys catching fish and other bathing activities on glorious Spanish beach settings. The shadow of the boat in Valencia, the wind in sails, the beasts pulling the boats out of the water, and of course that famous image of Boys on the Beach, where three very young boys lie face down slippery when wet on the sand as the tide goes out, or the beautiful naked boy bringing his white horse out of the water on a rope after bathing with it. While boys were allowed to frolic naked in the water in these Victorian times, it was more modest for girls to wear a bathing garment, and he captures the folds of the light linen exquisitely. There are portraits and Maria the Pretty One with her carnation in her hair and a Spanish shawl, the elegant society ladies like Mrs Winthrop or King Alphonso XIII in Hussar's Uniform, his wife Maria in the gardens of La Granja, the old man with a cigarette, a boy eating grapes, self portraits and famous calas of Mallorca or the Sierra Nevada in Granada. Page after page of exquisite paintings reproduced in glamorous colour in small compact hardback of 240pp. Colour.