miércoles, 13 de febrero de 2013

Modernist Art Temporary Exhibition in Valencia: Sorolla and Benlliure


 





We were at the Bellas Artes San Pio V (Fine Arts Museum). There we assisted to the new temporary exhibition about Clotilde de Sorolla, the wife of the famous Valenican painter Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923). About 20 paintings and 25 drawings that deal with the wife and muse that constantly accompanied the artist, from his youth until the painter's death. Their romance started around 1879, in their youth. The visitor, through light paintings, enables to open the door to the privacy of the family of Joaquin, a painter of light in Valencia and expressiveness of the look of his woman, laughing, playing and accompanying the birth of their children. 

            Fishermen                Royal Bridge in Valencia
Another set of pictures show us portraits reading in the garden of his home in Madrid. The last section shows Clotilde assisting to the creation of the last art-pieces and having vaccation and leisure around Spain. Finally, Clotilda takes care of her husband at the last days and the public impact of his death.
                                       Clotilde de Sorolla in Blue dress

Alongside this exhibition visit please the pavilion dedicated to Mariano Benlliure in a small chapel next to the Jardines de Viveros (Royal Gardens) where one can admire the artistic talent of a contemporary of Sorolla, the Sculptor Mariano Benlliure. Between different sketches turning around nature and dame portraits you will admire the splendid mausoleum of the great Toreador of the beginning of XXth Century, Joselito. This splendid bronze piece represents the devotional line that accompanied crying his coffin in his last paseíllo (walking ceremony before the corrida)till the cemetery. José Gómez Ortega was a bullfighter of gipsy background who reached the summit of this art, according to his critics. But around 1920, he failed in Madrid, and agreed to fight a corrida in Talavera, with his brother in law Ignacio Sanchez Mejias. That was his very last one. The fifth bull' sharp horns pierced his stomach and he died. The famous sculptor of this time, Benlliure composed the sculpture in 1926, and it was exposed to the public at the Palace of Fine Arts, settling permanently in the Cemetery San Fernando of Seville.
 
Sketch for the Mausoleum of Joselito
                                         
                                                    
 






Mausoleum of Joselito in San Fernando 
Cemetery of Seville





JVN