Sorolla - Walk along the seaside

A Spanish painter, greatly influenced by Impressionism, Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923) painted many scenes of beaches or rocky seasides, mixing lyricism and realism. His characters are mainly women and children, drawn on the beaches of the Mediterranean bathed in light, such as those of Jávea which he visited in 1896, 1898, 1900 and 1905. Sorolla uses an unusual photographic angle in painting and a restricted chromatic range of blues, sandy browns and whites, mastering the latter brilliantly. His style has been described as impressionist, post-impressionist or even luminist. In "Promenade au bord de la mer" Clotilde García del Castillo, the painter's wife, and María Clotilde, their eldest daughter, are depicted walking on the beach of Malvarrosa. Sorolla never sold this painting. When he died in 1923, it went to his son Joaquín Sorolla García, who bequeathed it to the Sorolla Museum.

Walk by the sea, 1909
Sorolla Museum, Madrid