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Joaquín Sorolla is the Valencian painter who steered the local and national art scene towards modernity and became a leading artist not only on a national but also on an international scale.

Sorolla drew inspiration from Parisian Impressionism and the naturalist painters who championed creative freedom and embraced the outdoors as the stage for their paintings, seeking to capture reality, the moment and the ephemeral nature of light.

“You have to paint swiftly, because so much is lost, fleeting, never to be found again.” This striving to capture the moment nature offers means that Sorolla’s brushstrokes are light, fast, and rich in textures and a combination of complementary colours that accentuate the painting’s luminosity.

The light and optimism of Sorolla’s paintings, featuring scenes of everyday life and Mediterranean landscapes, stand in stark contrast to the paintings of his Spanish contemporaries. “Here, to make a name for yourself and win medals, you have to paint inanimate subject matter,” Sorolla contended, alluding to the rejection of his luminist work in Spain.

In 1898, Spain lost the colonies of Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam and plunged into decline that gave rise to a pessimistic and tragic mood, which was reflected in the works of the painters, writers and intellectuals of the Generation of 1898, such as Valle-Inclán, Ortega y Gasset, Zuloaga, Julio Romero de Torres, Pérez Galdós and Unamuno.

In Valencia, in contrast, a more optimistic spirit took root, which can be seen in the great Valencian artists of the turn of the century.