Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida and Under the Awning, Zarauz

'Under the Awning, Zarauz' (1910) by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida;
St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis

Joaquín Sorolla, born on 27 February 1863 and died on 10 August 1923, was a Spanish painter from Valencia and specialised in portraits and landscapes. When you google the images of his paintings, you see a lot of seaside scenes and sunlit beaches. Sorollo got his initial education in his native town, at the age of fourteen. When he was eighteen years old, he went to Madrid and studied the paintings of the great masters in Museo del Prado. He received a grant after military service which enabled him to study art in Rome. He went to exhibitions of Jules Bastien-Lepage and Adolf Menzel in Paris and got influenced by their work. Upon his return to Rome he studied with Emilio Sala. He is classified as a Realist and Impressionist painter but anyone can see that his beach paintings are in the Impressionist style. Sorolla's work is represented in museums in Europe and America, and many of his paintings can also be found in private collections. It wasn't difficult for me to choose a painting and I particularly like this one because of the sweet colours and the dresses and hats. I looked up on the internet what Zarauz means and it appears to be a coastal town in Northern Spain.