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Joaquín Sorolla, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez and Mariano Benlliure, three illustrious Valencian figures, were contemporaries and friends. They trained abroad (Rome, Assisi, Paris) and settled in Madrid. Three parallel paths of friends who shared a great deal of personal and artistic common ground, accomplished great achievements and earned international acclaim.

While in the rest of Spain the artists and intellectuals of the Generation of 1898 were caught up in the pessimism engendered by the loss of the colonies, the painter, writer and sculptor chose the path of optimism to depict the surroundings in which they were born in a “realistic and natural” manner, eschewing the academicism and defeatism that prevailed in Spain. Furthermore, their works are imbued with deep emotion and sensitivity owing to their nostalgia for the city of their birth.

It can therefore be said that the three friends share a common language and aesthetic narrative that sets the Valencian art scene apart.