Image source: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). View source
Sewing the Sail
Joaquín Sorolla · Impressionism
- Artist
- Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863–1923)
- Date
- 1896
- Dimensions
- 220 x 302 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Ca' Pesaro, International Gallery of Modern Art, Venice, Italy
Sewing the Sail shows a group of fishermen and women in Valencia mending a huge white sail spread across the ground in the shade of a vine-covered porch. Sunlight filters through the leaves and falls in bright, dancing patches on the white canvas and the workers.
A closer look
The real subject of the painting is the dazzling Mediterranean light. Sorolla, nicknamed 'the master of light', painted the vast sail in countless shades of white, blue, violet and gold, as the sunlight and shadows play across its folds. Pots of flowers in the foreground and the sea glimpsed behind complete the scene of everyday work by the shore. Painted outdoors on a huge scale, the picture now belongs to Ca' Pesaro, Venice's museum of modern art.
