The work of Valencia-born artist Joaquín Sorolla gives the Prado Museum a chance to show its fine new galleries, writes JANE WALKERin Madrid
WHEN THE Prado Museum in Madrid opened its new wings a couple of years ago the directors breathed a sigh of relief. No longer would important works from the permanent collection be moved around to make space for the special exhibitions that most museums depend on for their income, and the dozens of paintings banished to the cellars for lack of space could finally come out into the open.
For years the Prado had suffered badly from overcrowding but now the special shows – such as the Picasso blockbuster, simultaneously displayed in the Prado and the neighbouring Reina Sofía Modern Art Museum, or the recent Francis Bacon exhibition – have attracted long queues.
Tomorrow another major exhibition which promises to bring huge crowds opens at the museum. In a chronological journey through the career of Joaquín Sorolla, one of Spain’s greatest and most popular late 19th and early 20th century artists, visitors will see many works still in private collections, including some still owned by his family and rarely seen, as well as others borrowed from museums around the world. It is almost certainly the most important exhibition of his work ever staged, and over 100 of his paintings will be on show in the Prado.
The Valencian-born Sorolla was a prolific artist who painted more than 4,000 works during his comparatively short career – he was only 60 when he died, but was paralysed for several years before his death. He is probably best known for his Mediterranean land and seascapes, often on a large scale with figures as well as views, and for his use of sunlight on the waves or in gardens near Valencia.
Many of them show fishermen and their wives with their horses and oxen pulling in their boats and nets or sewing sails, or women and children – such as the almost impressionistic Walk on the Beachof his wife and daughters with their white dresses billowing in the breeze.
Some, such as the naked boys playing in the waves or a young boy leading a white horse from a bathe in the sea, are so lifelike that one almost feels compelled to pick up a towel to dry them off.
Many of the works highlight Sorolla's skill as a portrait painter which show how he was influenced by Velázquez, whom he greatly admired. This can be clearly seen in a nude woman (almost certainly his wife Clotilde) in the style of Velázquez's Venus with a Mirror, or another full- length portrait of Clotilde in a black evening dress. She and their children feature in many of his paintings; particularly touching is one of Clotilde lying in bed with her newborn daughter Elena by her side, and another of his older daughter María looking frail wrapped in a fur blanket when she was convalescing from illness in the mountains near Madrid.
The upper floor of the building is devoted to a series of enormous panels belonging to the Hispanic Society of America, which because of their size have never before left New York. Vision of Spaindepicts traditional events and views in different Spanish regions – such as bullfights, Easter processions or flamenco dancers in Andalusia, a fishing fleet in Catalonia, a religious procession in Galicia or the palm trees in Elche – all packed with figures and movement.
These panels, which took over five years to complete, hang in the library of the Hispanic Society and left for the first time last year to be seen by more than a million people in Valencia, Málaga, Bilbao and Barcelona before travelling to Madrid where they will remain until September. The curators say it is unlikely they will be allowed to travel again.
Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923) at the Prado Museum, Madrid, May 26th to September 6th