After Bathing, Valencian Beach

This is one of a number of artworks produced by Joaquin Sorolla that had fairly similar names and would essentially capture various figures drying themselves off after bathing in the sea. This version was completed in 1908 and now resides within a private collection.

We find the artist carefully angled directly in line with the edge of the beach as the waves drift in from the left. This immediately creates a visual divide between the left and right hand sides of the composition, with an additional row of interest on the horizontal at the top of the painting via a series of small yachts making their way through the sea. In the foreground are the key elements of the scene, a mother with two children who have recently been swimming and are no drying themselves with a moment of rest. The younget boy is in his mother's arms, whilst the girl looks older and happily walks alongside. The level of finish on the detail in this painting is not as much as we are used to with Sorolla, suggesting that he chose to work more freely and leave some elements with thicker plains of colour rather than inserting his usual balance of subtle variations of tone.

The painter would make use of the Valencian beaches many times across a number of paintings, capturing scenes of leisure pursuits such as this, as well as some social realism where local fishermen were included. The bright light that would flood this part of the city was ideally suited to the Impressionist approach of Sorolla, although it took him time to arrive at this brighter palette having originally worked with darker tones for much of the earlier stages of his career. The public would generally get behind the later artworks, but some exhibitions of his darker portraits were actually well received by academics and fellow artists who would often look for different elements of an artwork in deciding their preferences.

Spanish art has been decorated with some of the finest artists in history, from right across the world and it is pleasing to find that Sorolla himself would take inspiration from the greater Spanish masters, as well as from the stunning landscape of this nation as well. Goya and Velazquez can be found alongside his own paintings within the Prado Museum today and he would have studied those himself as a young man, around a century ago. This influence can be seen in the darker tones of some of his earlier pieces but eventually it would be the incredible light found in Spain which brought about a change, just as shown in artworks such as After Bathing, Valencian Beach. He adored the calming tones of the sea and the variety of activities that occurred on the shore and so regularly returned to capture it.