PAUL SIGNAC AND PAINTING IN FRANCE, BELGIUM AND SPAIN AROUND 1900
SOROLLA, Joaquín (Valencia, 1863 – Cercedilla, 1923)
The Courtyard of the Sorolla House
1917
Oil sobre canvas, 95,9 x 64,8 cm
Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza
In 1919 Sorolla invested most of the money he had earned in his New York exhibition in building a house that he himself had designed. Following the advice of his friend, the painter Aureliano de Beruete, he bought a piece of land in the highest part of Madrid—between the district of Chamberí and the Paseo de la Castellana or Paseo del Obelisco, as it was known then.
The house was built according to the plans of the architect Enrique María Repullés. Sorolla himself designed the surrounding garden, very much in the Valencian and Sevillian styles. He decorated it with fountains and statues, set with a great sense of harmony, and with a beautiful collection of Valencian tiles, white with blue patterns . The house was finished in 1911.
The Courtyard of the Sorolla House belongs to a series of studies that Sorolla did on the garden and patios of his house in Madrid. Although most of them are neither dated nor signed, we know that they were painted between 1914 and 1920, at different hours of the day and in all seasons; yet the garden was mainly depicted in the spring, when the flowers are in full bloom. Bernardino de Pantorba catalogued the twenty-eight views belonging to the Museo Sorolla in Madrid . The others are housed in private collections.
In 1917, Sorolla worked intensively on his important series on The Regions of Spain, commissioned by Mr. Huntington for the library of the Hispanic Society in New York. However, between February and October of that year, Sorolla made a pause in his travels through Spain and returned to Madrid; one of the reasons for this was the birth of his first grandchild. He also took the opportunity to spend the summer in San Sebastian . The Courtyard of the Sorolla House was no doubt painted in the spring of that year, during his stay in Madrid.
The first impression upon gazing at The Courtyard of the Sorolla House is its colour. The artist displays his skill in rendering the effect of light with broad paint strokes. The colours he chooses for this picture are those he uses in his landscapes and seascapes: yellows, reds and violet. The brushstrokes are uneven, but never unsteady. This is how, a few months after completing this painting, Sorolla explained his particular technique to a French newspaper reporter: “I do not have a recipe, because in my opinion painting is a mental disposition. My brushstrokes are short or long depending on the subject and the occasion”. The composition is centred on the polygonal blue tiled fountain covered in flowers and surrounded by abundant vegetation; part of the house can be seen in the background. But the play of colours is so dominant that the onlooker pays little attention to the objects represented. Sorolla does not use an iconographic message whose language would be made up of the fountain, the flowerpots, the flowers or the building; his sole interest is the surfaces of all of these objects and the way they reflect the light of the atmosphere. Thus, the painting strikes a balance between the solidity of the objects, the brightness of the light and the coloured environment in which these are immersed. The vibrant image transmits such an impression of movement within the composition that the beholder perceives better the light effect on the objects than their physical solidity itself. That same year of 1917 some Catalan critics commented on the connection between Sorolla’s studies and the research carried out by some Catalan artists such as Anglada-Camarasa, Santiago Rusiñol and Eliseu Meifrèn. But the thorough approach to the study of nature that Sorolla undertook in that period was for him something more than a mere visual exercise. On the contrary, it often involved strong, and sometimes exhausting, emotions.
In 1916 he wrote to his wife: “I do not know whether it is due to weakness or to an excess of sensitivity, but today the contemplation of nature has affected me more than any other day . And again in 1918, in another letter to his wife he adds: “I wish I was not so overcome by emotion because, after a few hours like today’s, I feel shattered, exhausted; I cannot put up with so much pleasure, I cannot bear it as I used to [...]. This is because painting, when one feels it, is superior to anything else. No, I meant to say: it’s nature which is so beautiful” .When we gaze at this picture, we are captivated by the painter’s emotional response to nature and charmed by his skill to convey this emotion through light and colour.
Carmen Gracia
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