1894

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida

Location📍 

Room 061A

Produced in 1894, this emblematic work is a masterpiece of Spanish social realism, earning Sorolla a First Medal at the 1895 National Exhibition. The subject and title were inspired by the tragic concluding scene of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s novel Flor de mayo, reflecting the harsh reality of seafaring life. Set in the confined interior hold of a fishing boat, the composition depicts a young fisherman lying on the floor after a maritime accident. While two older sailors—one in a traditional barretina—tenderly treat his wound, the scene transcends mere reportage to evoke the dramatic solemnity of a secular pietà. Sorolla imbues the figures with a noble gravity, a quality critics later compared to the influence of Velázquez. The painting’s power lies in its daring spatial design and mastery of luminosity. Light streams through the boat’s hatch, softly illuminating the hold and culminating in the silvery reflections of freshly caught fish piled in the background. A modern, sharp-angled framing shifts the perspective, revealing the stairs down which the boy was carried and heightening the spatial tension of the enclosed setting. Although adhering to the formal rigors of strict naturalism with firm, descriptive drawing, the powerful presence of the figures, who dominate the composition relative to the canvas size, creates a profound sense of solemnity that anticipates the innovative painterly language of Sorolla's later oeuvre.

1909 (Signed in 1910)

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida

Location📍 

Room 060A

Between late June and late September 1909, during a fruitful three-month stay in Valencia, Joaquín Sorolla produced several masterpieces, including The Horse’s Bath. While this work is signed "1910," it must have been painted in the summer of 1909, as it was already reproduced in a book printed in December of that year. Reflecting his Mediterranean fascination, Sorolla drew on the motif of nude children favored by Mariano Fortuny and Sargent, but distinguished his work by removing the horizon and bringing the sea’s edge into the immediate foreground, turning the water's movement into a purely pictorial subject. Despite the canvas's size, he painted it from life without previous studies, achieving a perfect balance between static postures and dynamism. The composition strategically guides the viewer’s gaze: the diagonal position of the boy in the foreground draws us into the canvas, while his turned face carries our gaze back to the second boy and finally to the abandoned posture of the third, who lies parallel to the upper edge. There is a gradual increase in relaxation and chromatic intensity according to the distance from the viewer; the white flesh of the nearest boy transitions through the tanned shades of the second to the reddish-bronze of the soaked boy in the background. Sorolla meticulously rendered the sun’s intensity through highlights that evolve from matte white impastos on the driest boy to very luminous reflections on the fully wet skin of the third. The artist captured the movement of the water using very broad brushstrokes with turquoise, blue, violet, and mauve tones, also reflecting the small hollow created by the undertow near the central figure's feet. Of special interest is the double silhouette cast by the figures, which the artist observed under Valencia’s intense midday sun: their lower silhouettes correspond to their reflections on the water, while those directly below their bodies are their shadows, colored in a shade of violet.