Joaquín Sorolla: unseen brushstrokes

150 artworks by Sorolla, some never shown before and others barely known, trace his triumph in the United States in an exhibition organized by the Fundación Mapfre in Madrid.

Bajo el toldo. Playa de Zarauz. Retrato de su familia. 1910. Saint Louis Art Museum.

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (Valencia, 1863- Madrid, 1923) had already won the Americans over before he even got there. Established and acclaimed in Europe, the Valencian painter wanted to go even more international and crossed the Atlantic. But some of his most awarded paintings had made the leap before him.
Early artworks that laid bare the social reality of the time, still carrying the influence of Velázquez onto the canvas. And yet Sorolla turned up in the United States (in two shows, in 1909 and 1911) with exultant images of the brightest, most optimistic Mediterranean Spain. That is how he won the Americans over, and he was never short of benefactors to secure his success.

On his first trip, Sorolla packed portraits of his family as a calling card to make sure he got a few clients. And the success became real, even the American president William Howard Taft sat for him. Of the 54 portrait commissions he landed on his second trip (1911), we find a new gamble on light by the painter. He starts working with greater compositional freedom, letting in the virtuosity of transparencies and the textures of fabrics, playing more boldly with light.

Sala de Embajadores. Alhambra de Granada. 1909. The Getty Center, Los Angeles.

Landscape painting travels with Sorolla towards his maturity. In 1908, before setting off on his American adventure, he travels often to Andalusia, where his evolution begins. There he finds intimate corners in which to give himself over to the regenerationist influence of Aureliano de Beruete and to depict the poetics of silence, moving away from the folkloric idea that dressed up Spain. The Alhambra in Granada was witness to it.

Dos hermanas. 1909. The Art Institute of Chicago.

But there is no doubt that Sorolla seduced the Americans with the Mediterranean light poured over his sea and beach landscapes. During his stay in Jávea, in 1905, he carried out various experiments with light and colour that forged his mastery in reflecting, exquisitely, the light on bodies submerged under water. Many of these artworks stayed on the American continent, in private collections or museums, others came back to Spain. Until 11 January 2015 they will be gathered together in the Sala Recoletos of the Fundación Mapfre in the exhibition "Sorolla y Estados Unidos, una nueva mirada sobre el pintor valenciano".