Afternoon Sun, Playa de Valencia

This painting, from 1910, was titled Afternoon Sun, Playa de Valencia and continues the artist's love affair with the shoreline of his native region. He would return to this part of Eastern Spain many times in order to capture the abundance of light and colour.

We find some cattle in the foreground of this painting and they would be used in order to drag vessels across the shore, once returned from a fishing venture. In some cases Sorolla would actually go aboard boats at sea, particularly fishing boats, in order to get the atmosphere across of the working lives of these traditional families. There was something beautiful about seeing man and animal working together, something that probably had been happening through the generations of these families as they handed down the key techniques of fishing and boat management downwards to their children. The artist produced a number of paintings which have been grouped in the movement of social realism, whilst other sea-based works were more about leisure time and even motherhood. It seems that these beaches would be a huge part of life in Valencia, with whole families spending their time here, completing a variety of activities, including fulfilling their own livelihoods.

Joaquin Sorolla worked in a variety of different genres across his career, though it was these bright scenes of Valencia that became his most famous body of work. He was highly skilled in portraiture and also created a number of more traditionally-styled portraits with formal postures. Sorolla would create some of these portraits on commission, but also output a number of family portraits of his wife and children, as well as some self portraits. The items of his family would not be intended to be sold, and most were kept within the family before being gifted to the foundation set up in order to bring about a permanent museum which would eventually take possession of a number of his paintings. It is still open today and is based in Madrid, a city in which he would learn so much as a young art follower prior to his decades of success.

The Spanish names of the past have given an important influence into the overall direction of European art, and like most other countries across the European continent, there have been some periods that have been more fruitful that others. Even the likes of Italy and France would sometimes be leading, and other times be following, as part of an incredible exchange of ideas which have spread between the countries for many centuries. The influence would then spread abroad to the US, and the 20th century marked the point at which that growing art nation would then start to lead the way for the first time in certain artistic styles. Sorolla himself found success in a number of exhibitions in the US and it was one of the countries which first took to his work.