AIC's 52nd Annual Meeting

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1863-1923) was one of the most prominent Spanish artists of the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. His exceptional talent in capturing the brilliant luminosity of his Mediterranean surroundings and native Spain earned him the title ‘Master of Light’. An investigation into the materials and techniques of five of his paintings in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum - Pepilla and her Daughter (1910), The Wounded Foot (1909), Hall of the Ambassadors, Alhambra, Granada (1909), Corner of the Garden, Alcazar, Sevilla (1910), and Court of the Dances, Alcázar, Sevilla (1910) - provided the opportunity to study Sorolla’s methods, use of materials, and approach to portraiture, landscapes and social/beach scenes at a singular moment in his career.

Pepilla and her Daughter is a portrait of a Romani woman and her child festively adorned in traditional flamenco-style Andalusian dresses. Its conservation and current gallery hang mark an important moment of visibility for the painting, now on display for the first time in over two decades. During its treatment, a technical study was carried out to elucidate Sorolla’s material and compositional choices. Examination of the canvas preparation, underpainting, pigments, and paint application were carried out using infrared reflectography (IRR), photomicrography, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), and macro X-ray fluorescence (MA-XRF) mapping. The findings from these analyses provide primary evidence of Sorolla’s working practice as documented in contemporary photographs and letters by the artist. For example, that he cut his own canvases to unique sizes was supported by thread count analysis, and that he used post-industrial, synthetic paints purchased from commercial suppliers was supported by the identification of pigments including cadmium yellow, chromium oxide green, and cobalt blue by XRF measurements.

The other four paintings in the Getty’s collection, which include a beach scene and three landscapes, were likewise studied. Photomicrography has highlighted similarities in Sorolla’s creative strategies for paint mixing and application among these scenes to achieve specific visual effects. For example, wet-in-wet swirling of multiple colors together to impart a rippling, dynamic quality in dappled, sunlit areas, and the depiction of three-dimensional architectural details such as stucco-like textures and balusters through deliberate flicks of paint. Although still ongoing, preliminary results suggest Sorolla was consistent about his choice of pigments - and pigment mixtures - to evoke a particular mood. For example, the deep, warm tones in Pepilla elicit the tender feelings in the mother-daughter bond that is portrayed, while the beach scene of The Wounded Foot is composed of lighter, brighter, and more energetic color mixtures. Colorimetry and color difference analysis of representative colors from each painting will be visualized in CIELAB space to examine these trends and confirm these observed patterns quantitatively, while XRF and RIS-based pigment identification and mapping will provide a snapshot of Sorolla's palette during these two years. Because his paintings are found in collections across the US, these findings will hopefully inspire additional studies to establish a more comprehensive overview of Sorolla’s working methods and materials over the course of his career.