Manuel Vicent paints Sorolla’s luminous sea with phrases | News from Catalonia | EUROtoday

In a grey post-war Spain, the ocean, that blue line that merges with the horizon, meant freedom for Manuel Vicent. This is what he himself remembers within the video of the exhibition that has simply opened on the Palau Martorell in Barcelona, ​​with 86 works by Joaquín Sorolla, which on this event could be learn via the phrases painted by the Valencian author, a person additionally linked to the Mediterranean since his start. Perhaps for that reason, the creator affirms that the ocean evokes not solely freedom, however even immortality. If the works in themselves are already luminous, punctuated by these texts they provide a profound and genuine new look. In the ocean of ​​Sorolla with Manuel Vicent It could be visited till April 6.

The exhibition, which additionally contains many images displaying the painter in his work space, and even the kids, men and women he portrayed, particularly on Cabanyal seaside, but in addition in Xàbia and Dénia, is a collaboration between the Sorolla Museum and the Sorolla Museum Foundation, which premiered in Valencia in October 2024. The visitor is the author, who’s finishing up a literary curation across the work of the grasp of sunshine. The result’s a poetic and visible journey the place the work illuminate the gaze and the phrases illuminate the emotion. Curious that it coincides with the exhibition devoted to Mercè Rodoreda on the CCCB, the place the same train is finished with the other course of. The plastic and audiovisual works accompany the texts of the creator of damaged mirror.

Returning to the Palau Martorell, the customer can get a more in-depth thought of ​​how Sorolla (1863-1923) noticed and lived the ocean, which in the long run isn’t very totally different from the expertise of Vicent (La Vilavella, Castelló, 1936), who goes as far as to say that when he noticed considered one of his first marine works he had the feeling of getting seen them earlier than. They merely mirrored with the identical blinding drive his days at sea: “I already knew it, because knowing is only remembering. Sorolla’s light was wandering like a synthetic idea through the spheres since time was created. The painter did nothing but remember it.”

In Sorolla’s sea are all those that went down or lived on the seaside, however his work is way broader, he painted greater than two thousand work. Naked youngsters are discovered enjoying within the sand, just like the well-known The little sloop (1909), the place a little bit boy performs with a little bit boat on the shore. “I was also one of those children who sailed on a paper boat… Throughout my life there has not been a safer boat, more resistant when it comes to facing the most hazardous voyages,” the author remembers on a poster positioned subsequent to this work.

There was additionally the bourgeoisie, like Sorolla’s family. You can see a portrait of his spouse, Clotilde on the seaside (1904), carrying an extended white gown, sitting within the swirl of the ocean with an umbrella overlaying herself from the solar, in addition to her youngsters, María, Joaquín and Elena, who she portrayed many occasions, enjoying or strolling within the sand; or his father-in-law, Antonio García, in a summery white go well with, resting on a rocking chair with the solar on his face trying on the Mediterranean.

Vicent remembers that initially of the twentieth century the maritime cities have been linked to the summer season colonies of the bourgeoisie, and Sorolla painted trying in direction of the 2 worlds, which coexisted for a couple of months a 12 months. His fashions got here from colonial-style homes and in addition from the depressing barracks, as could be seen within the work of fishermen leaping into the ocean, oxen dragging the boats, girls ready to return with the catch or within the look of a boy from Cabañal.

The exhibition affords a few of his most iconic work, which can resonate within the eyes of many, such because the aforementioned The little sloop, Bath time, Valencia, The arrival of the boats or Fisherwoman together with her son. But additionally uncover lesser-known prints, reminiscent of Waiting for the catch, Shipyard, Valencia Beach o In the shadow of the boatwhich reveal this broader view of the expertise of the ocean, which isn’t the identical for everybody, neither initially of the twentieth century, when most of them have been painted, nor as we speak, when the Mediterranean offers us again the perfect and worst facet of the human being.