Vision of Spain

Vision of Spain, also known as The Provinces of Spain, is a 1913–19 series of 14 monumental canvases by Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla depicting the customs, costumes, and traditions of regions of Spain. The series was commissioned by Archie Huntington for the Hispanic Society of America.[1]

Vision of Spain
The Provinces of Spain
ArtistJoaquín Sorolla
Year1913-19
MediumOil on canvas
LocationHispanic Society of America, New York City

Background

In 1911, Sorolla met Huntington in Paris and signed a contract to paint a series of oils on life in Spain. These 14 magnificent murals, range from 12 to 14 feet in height, and total 227 feet in length.[2][3] The major commission of his career, it would dominate the later years of Sorolla's life.

Huntington had envisioned the work depicting a history of Spain, but the painter preferred the less specific Vision of Spain, eventually opting for a representation of the regions of the Iberian Peninsula, and calling it The Provinces of Spain.[4] Despite the immensity of the canvases, Sorolla painted all but one en plein air, and travelled to the specific locales to paint them: Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Elche, Seville, Andalusia, Extremadura, Galicia, Guipuzcoa, Castile, Leon, and Ayamonte, at each site painting models posed in local costume. Each mural celebrated the landscape and culture of its region, panoramas composed of throngs of laborers and locals. By 1917 he was, by his own admission, exhausted.[5] He completed the final panel by July 1919.[6]

The Sorolla Room, housing the Provinces of Spain at the Hispanic Society of America, opened to the public in 1926.[7] The room closed for remodeling in 2008, and the murals toured museums in Spain for the first time. The Sorolla Room reopened in 2010, with the murals on permanent display.[8]

Full series
  • Castilla. La fiesta del pan (1913)
  • Sevilla. Holy Week Penitents (1914)
  • Aragón. La jota (1914)
  • Navarra. El concejo del Roncal (1914)
  • Guipúzcoa. Los bolos (1914)
  • Andalucía. El encierro (1914)
  • Sevilla. The Dance (1915)
  • Sevilla. The Bullfighters (1915)
  • Galicia. La romería (1915)
  • Cataluña. El pescado (1915)
  • Valencia. Las grupas (1916)
  • Extremadura. El mercado (1917)
  • Elche. El palmeral (1918-1919)
  • Ayamonte. La pesca del atún (1919)

References
  1. The Hispanic Society of America. "Paintings of Spain and Portugal". Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  2. Burke, Marcus. "A Collection in Context: The Hispanic Society of America". Media Center for Art History at Columbia University. Retrieved 21 April 2013. These 14 murals can be seen in detail online at this Web site. In the First Floor map at the upper right, click on the blue dot in the left-most empty room -- which shows the whole Sorolla Room.
  3. "The Provinces of Spain". Media Center for Art History at Columbia University. Retrieved 21 April 2013.
  4. Muller, Priscilla: "Sorolla and America", The Painter Joaquin Sorolla, p. 65.
  5. Muller, p. 67.
  6. "Yesterday afternoon I was able to do quite a lot of work on the picture, so that I hope to finish it today, the feast of St. Peter. That will be the end of more than six years' work, of suffering and struggle, with so much that was good and bad, especially at this stage". (F.P. Sorolla, p. 29.)
  7. Felipe Garín and Facundo Tomás Visión de España. La colección de la Hispanic Society of America Catálogo de la Exposición, Bancaja, Valencia 2008
  8. Kahn, Eve (4 March 2010). "Panoramic 'Vision' Back From Tour of Spain". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 February 2015.
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