JOAQUIN SOROLLA Y BASTIDA. THE HORSE’S BATH.
WALLPAPER PHOTOMOSAICS by RAMÓN CAMPOS
Sorolla by Sorolla. All tiles are selected fragments of Sorolla’s artworks. Its original dimensions of 21,200 x 16,960 pixels allow high-resolution reproductions up to 200 x 160 cm. Of course, it can be faithfully reproduced in smaller sizes.
ABOUT ORIGINAL «THE HORSE’S BATH» ARTWORK BY SOROLLA.
This canvas was included in the series of scenes on the beach at El Cabañal in Valencia that Sorolla produced in the summer of 1909 upon his return from the United States. It was also titled The White Horse.
It is one of the painter’s most popular paintings: we see here the best-known Sorolla, the one with the symphony of whites and blues, which reigns supreme in this year’s paintings, such as the Promenade by the Sea.
Compositionally, this work shows a very frequent resource in Sorolla’s production. The point of view is placed at the level of the young man who stars in the scene, but the lens seems to tilt, thus creating a long close-up that relegates the horizon line to a narrow band at the top of the canvas. With this, the vanishing point is limited, the viewer’s attention is focused, the gaze is trapped on the surface of the canvas, and the movement is driven by light reflections, shadows, and the undulating line created by the water on the shore.
Undoubtedly, Sorolla is much more interested in what happens on the ground than in the sky, which in the Levantine summer appears, in the central hours of the day, dull due to the haze of heat. The shore is nevertheless full of effects full of visual interest: the shiny bodies from their wet skin, the sheet of water that makes the sand a mirror, the reflections of light in the restless water, the shadows, everything that makes them aware of the mirage that is our gaze. [Museo Sorolla. Madrid (Spain)]