DOI Heft:
No. 133 (April, 1904)
DOI Artikel:Williams, Leonard: Joaquin Sorolla and Spanish painting of to-day
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19881#0265
Joaquin Sorolla
■ SEGOVIANS BY JOAQUIN SOROLLA
Another Marguerite, and the applause it merited in that in regard to so pronounced a personality as
every quarter encouraged him to trust in future to his, the least idea of imitation must at once be
his innermost convictions. He helped, in fact, to set aside; for imitation, as applied to painting, has
seize the spirit of the newly - dawning realistic only a single sense, and that a base one. The
" moment," which is still supreme in almost every imitator of another's art repudiates his own identity ;
part of Europe. he is, in fact, a " man " without the corresponding
Henceforth his work is always based upon the " moment," and therefore of no value. His country
life he sees and feels around him, though pre- does not need him; neither does his age. They
ferably upon the life of the labouring classes, have not chosen him ; they have not even called
as being more recent, more spontaneous, more in him. But the "imitator" who copies from en-
harmony with the exigencies of this busy age, which thusiasm, and whose privilege and command it
lives by toil alone. And since Sorolla has few is to deliver a precious message full of weighty
rivals in his rendering of sunshine and abundant and immediate meaning, requires another and a
warmth of colour, nowhere has he discovered a nobler term; and none, it seems to me, is more
more prolific or congenial source of inspiration exact or opportune than " sympathiser."
than in the teeming southern sea-marge that he In this sense Sorolla has " copied" much. So
knows and loves so well—among the fishers and prominent a chieftain of the realistic " moment " as
their wives and babies, their cattle and their boats. Bastien Lepage was bound to impress him very
And while he excels in portraiture and landscape, deeply, while other painters whose spirit is observ-
the origin of his grandest work of all is ever in able in most of his work are Velasquez, Goya, and
the myriad-hued and myriad-passioned playas of Jimenez Aranda.
Valencia. Apart from this, he always turns to nature for
We must, however, recall the influence exercised his model. Even for the imperfect and in some
upon Sorolla by other painters, bearing in mind respects conventional Second of May, he improvised
246
■ SEGOVIANS BY JOAQUIN SOROLLA
Another Marguerite, and the applause it merited in that in regard to so pronounced a personality as
every quarter encouraged him to trust in future to his, the least idea of imitation must at once be
his innermost convictions. He helped, in fact, to set aside; for imitation, as applied to painting, has
seize the spirit of the newly - dawning realistic only a single sense, and that a base one. The
" moment," which is still supreme in almost every imitator of another's art repudiates his own identity ;
part of Europe. he is, in fact, a " man " without the corresponding
Henceforth his work is always based upon the " moment," and therefore of no value. His country
life he sees and feels around him, though pre- does not need him; neither does his age. They
ferably upon the life of the labouring classes, have not chosen him ; they have not even called
as being more recent, more spontaneous, more in him. But the "imitator" who copies from en-
harmony with the exigencies of this busy age, which thusiasm, and whose privilege and command it
lives by toil alone. And since Sorolla has few is to deliver a precious message full of weighty
rivals in his rendering of sunshine and abundant and immediate meaning, requires another and a
warmth of colour, nowhere has he discovered a nobler term; and none, it seems to me, is more
more prolific or congenial source of inspiration exact or opportune than " sympathiser."
than in the teeming southern sea-marge that he In this sense Sorolla has " copied" much. So
knows and loves so well—among the fishers and prominent a chieftain of the realistic " moment " as
their wives and babies, their cattle and their boats. Bastien Lepage was bound to impress him very
And while he excels in portraiture and landscape, deeply, while other painters whose spirit is observ-
the origin of his grandest work of all is ever in able in most of his work are Velasquez, Goya, and
the myriad-hued and myriad-passioned playas of Jimenez Aranda.
Valencia. Apart from this, he always turns to nature for
We must, however, recall the influence exercised his model. Even for the imperfect and in some
upon Sorolla by other painters, bearing in mind respects conventional Second of May, he improvised
246