Whenever I visit Museums, I jot down the names of artists that intrigue me for research later.  Sometimes that leads me to seek out art books about the painter.  I don’t remember where I first saw Sorolla  - likely the Rhode Island School of Design [a world-class museum at a college!] or the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.  Several years later I tracked down a book on his work and put it on my Christmas list.

I would call Sorolla’s style post-impressionism, just because its more realistic than say, Monet.  The fine folks at Wikipedia call it Luminism (Impressionism with great attention to light effects).  He did the usual women in dresses at the beach (my weakness).  Maybe more children running around naked than I am comfortable with, though I am sure historically accurate for a turn of the century Spanish beach.  But he seems to be the first to include steer at the beach.  Not quite sure what was happening.  Boats, people, cattle and all running amok.  Maybe they were dragging the boat ashore, the original scene must have been chaotic.  

Sorolla was successful during his lifetime, winning awards at competitions and checking major bank.  He did a series of massive panels for the Hispanic Heritage Museum in New York, that are still on display.  Those tend to concentrate on people at work, mainly on the coast.  He also did dozens and dozens of portraits throughout his life.  Sorolla executed most of his paintings outside.

The book itself is a real art book, heavy on images of actual paintings.  The text is divided into four sections, three covering different stages of his career, where each had several pages of text intermixed with actual photographs, followed by dozens of pages of paintings.  The fourth has a year-by-year history of where he lived and what he painted at each location.

“Sorolla: The Masterpieces” is everything I look for in an art book.