The journalist César Suárez delves into the life and work of the Valencian painter to show through them that “other ways of living” and relating to others “are possible”
The Sorolla Year comes with everything. In his house-museum in Madrid you can already enjoy the exhibition ‘Origins’, which on March 30 will stop at the Fine Arts of Valencia, where from June 29 you can also see the paintings of the Valencian artist that are kept in Masaveu collection. The Prado, for its part, has brought together 23 works by the painter that reflect his facet as a portrait painter, including two recently acquired: that of Manuel Bartolomé Cossío and that of Martín Rico. In Alicante, the Gravina Fine Arts Museum is finalizing the preparations for “Sorolla and Valencian Painting from His Time”. And in Barcelona, in the new exhibition space of the Palau Martorell, the exhibition “Sorolla. Hunting for impressions” is on display. In addition, starting in February, the Royal Palace of Madrid will host the immersive exhibition “Sorolla through light”, which has also been announced for Valencia.
And from next January 12, the Sorolla Year will also have its corresponding Biography of the Valencian painter who died in 1923. Or, at least, that, the biography, is one of the facets that make up ‘How to change your life with Sorolla’, a job written by the journalist César Suárez which, according to Lumen, the publishing house that publishes it, is also a vital learning manual (hence the title) and a “lucid look” at culture, history and art.
against impressionism
In this book that combines reality and fiction, Suárez narrates the life of a discreet man in love with his family, an artist obsessed with his art, and a painter who enjoyed enormous success at the same time as suffered the scorn of some of his contemporaries, like those intellectuals of the Generation of ’98 who criticized the joie de vivre of his paintings and accused him of systematically evading the seriousness of the situation in Spain.
On the other hand, according to Suárez, Sorolla does “participate in that questioning of Spanish identity that runs through the entire 19th century, delves into the 20th until the fatal confrontation and in some aspects prevails today.” And he does it through that “Vision of Spain” commissioned by the American patron Archer Huntington for the Hispanic Society, and which made him tour the miserable Spain of the time for seven years. The biographer quotes Sorolla: “I, the most Spanish Valencian, have come to demonstrate the reality of Spanish nationalities”. And then he writes: “Often, the reality that he contemplates gives him a shot of pessimism, but despite this, the light of his painting always emerges victorious.”
How to change your life with Sorolla is not developed chronologically throughout the life of the painter but through a series of “themes” that defined his existence: work and determination; his relationship with Clotilde García, his wife; the painting of him; the Spain of the Generation of ’98; his relationship with Huntington or his relationship with “modernity.”
“It seems clear that Sorolla did not even think of having any kind of relationship with this start of modernity. His world was another,” says the biographer, who also points out that for the Valencian, impressionism “seemed like a pastime of idlers and what came after, ‘a ridiculously funny nonsense’ (so he said of Matisse’s paintings)”.
An interview with Picasso
With these themes -or chapters-, and making use of testimonials, fictional interviews (such as a possible meeting with Picasso), dialogues between the protagonists based on correspondence, letters, preparation of decalogues, personality tests, description of photographs or quotes from works literary works, Suárez wants to show the reader that, with his life and his paintings, Sorolla teaches us that “other ways of living” are possible.
Following the path started by Alain de Botton with his bold How to change your life with Proust, The Madrid journalist proposes the example of Sorolla to learn that one can love one’s own land without idolizing it, that friendships can be maintained despite the distance and love honestly throughout one’s life, that one can be one’s own time without letting oneself be dragged by the time and that for an artist talent and inspiration are just as important or more important than persistence, courage and vocation.