Joaquín Sorolla and the Sea – Part II

My last blog post was on Joaquín Sorolla's approach to plein air painting, after I saw the CaixaForum exhibition, "The Colour of the Sea" in Palma de Mallorca. His "Colour Notes" are so fresh and searching, so bold and gestural, that I sometimes felt that the resultant paintings, in which this carefully observed material was incorporated, lost a little in impact. Nonetheless, the exhibition shows beautifully how Sorolla, set up on the beach in very practical painting fashion, was ever-intent on capturing the endless changes of the seascapes. His meticulous studies of the different hues of blue, for instance, show his passion for capturing the limpid colours of the sea, the play of light on the waves or on bodies in the water, their diversity of tone. Yes, he was basing all his art on Nature, in a realistic fashion, but he certainly was breaking down what he saw into the most abstract of shapes and compositions.

Young Yachtsman, 1909, oil on canvas, oil on canvas, Joaquín Sorolla (Image courtesy of Museo Sorolla)

Sea and Rocks, Javea, 1900, oil on canvas, oil on canvas, Joaquín Sorolla (Image courtesy of Museo Sorolla)

The Sea, (Javea), 1905, oil on cardboard, Joaquín sorolla, (Image courtesy of Museo Sorolla)

Look, for instance, at the Young Swimmers. Their skin underwater becomes a shimmer of alabasters floating in this energy-filled abstraction of green ripples and dancing light.

Swimmers (Javea), oil on canvas, 1905, Joaquín Sorolla (Image courtesy of Museo Sorolla)

Another canvas that interested me in the flattening of the perspective is Marie at the Beach. As in other paintings he did of contrejour light on cliff tops, Sorolla flattened out the distances: the sea below is virtually on the same plane as Maria, because one senses his total fascination with the sea and its restless play of light and foam.

Marie on the Beach, (Biarritz), 1906, oil on canvas, Swimmers (Javea), oil on canvas, 1905, Joaquín Sorolla (Image courtesy of Museo Sorolla)

The translucence of white fabric, seen contrajour against the sea, is another of his favourite subjects. Just out of the Sea demonstrates this marvellously; it is all about that luminous, undulating light blowing in the wind, contrasting with the glowing solidity of the mother and small boy, all rendered tangy in the salt air and the susurration of the turquoise sea.

Just out of the Sea, 1915, oil on canvas, Joaquín Sorolla (Image courtesy of Museo Sorolla)

The marine landscapes are all about luminosity, distance being dissolved into pure colour. Sky and sea are his fascinations, his challenges.  No wonder he stated, ""I could not paint at all if I had to paint slowly. Every effect is so transient, it must be rapidly painted.”

Mar de Zarauz, 1910, oil on canvas, Joaquín Sorolla (Image courtesy of Museo Sorolla)

Breakwater, San Sebastian, oil on canvas, Joaquín Sorolla (Image courtesy of Museo Sorolla)

His 1919 works done at Cabo San Vincente in Mallorca are pure colour hymns. No wonder he is loved by so many for these celebrations of the sea, one of Spain's greatest beauties in his lifetime.  We are lucky that he recorded his country's coastal scenes before they were transformed by 20th-century mass tourism.

Cabo San Vicente, Mallorca, 1919, oil on canvas, Joaquín Sorolla (Image courtesy of Museo Sorolla)

Esmeraldas de la Cala San Vicente, 1919, oil on canvas, Joaquín Sorolla (Image courtesy of Museo Sorolla)

Una Barca en la Cala de San Vicente, 1919, oil on canvas, Joaquín Sorolla (Image courtesy of Museo Sorolla)

Helena en Cala San Vicente, 1919, oil on canvas, Joaquín Sorolla (Image courtesy of Museo Sorolla)

That Raking Light

I live on the site of an old oyster cannery, which allows an immediacy with the salt water creeks and wide-flung marshes that is unusual. Living with the rhythm of the tides and hours, you become very aware of the play of light across the spartina grasses that make up the marshes. Since the house faces almost due east, we can watch the sun rising further and further north, from behind a long barrier island opposite us, as mid-summer arrives, and then the slow retreat again to winter.

The Sweep of Marsh, watercolour, Jeannine Cook artist

All this play of light has made me tremendously aware of the amazing power of raking light for art. Sunrises, for me as I face east, are dramatic but it is the late afternoon sunshine that creates the marvellous scenes. Slowly, the marshes become more and more luminous, and even without the clouds which are often so majestic, the sense of space is heart-lifting.

Because the coast is so flat, the low horizon almost becomes an integral part of any painting. Inevitably, any landscape painting of the marshes becomes about light and space, whose drama causes one to pause. The scale of man to landscape becomes very much tipped to nature, a balance that is good to remember.

Summer Storms, watercolour.Jeannine Cook artist

The key ingredient in so many of the scenes I witness, on a daily basis, is this raking light across the marshes. Its drama is urgent, powerful, but quietly insistent. It makes me return, again and again, to try and capture coastal landscapes of enormous beauty and mystery.