The subjects chosen by Sorolla are varied. He paints fashionable portraits, and occasionally landscape. Mostly he paints scenes on the sunny Mediterranean shores of Spain. Into these he introduces figures, sometimes subordinated to the sea, more often as the principal interest of the picture. Sometimes he shows fishermen working at their boats, as in the stunning canvas in the Metropolitan Museum. When he does, they are no bent-backed toilers, but joyous, active, triumphant creatures. More often Sorolla loves to paint people playing on the beach, their light clothes spotted cleverly against the bright sand or waves; or best of all, children! Healthy and full of vivid glee, they race along the beach, lie on the sand in the wash of reaching breakers, or swim frog-like in the green transparency of sheltered water.
[Landscape. Alexander Nasmyth, 1758-1840]
This landscape by the Scotch painter, Alexander Nasmyth, is so unobtrusive as to be easily overlooked by the visitor. For those who feel the spirit of the little picture, however, it has an abiding charm. The artist was a man of extraordinary versatility and enterprise, an able scene painter and architect, and an inventor and engineer of eminence. In our painting one sees little of the boldness expected from a mind given credit for originating principles of steamboat propulsion and bridge construction. The touch is formal, almost shy, in its reserve; the drawing is precise, and the lighting and color conventional. Much of the charm of the work is probably due to this reticence. The scene presents a restful tranquility, and a quaint homeliness. The interest plays back and forth between the romantic old ruin and the contrasting rural and domestic life which has put past splendors to such strange modern uses. The theme is reminiscent of Piranesi’s etchings of classical ruins. Out of death springs life; from the decayed tree come strange fungus growths. After hundreds of years, the castle wall of a feudal lord gives support to a peasant cottage; his hall serves to shelter cattle.
Alexander Nasmyth was a pupil of the portraitist, Allan Ramsay (1713-1784). Ramsay discovered him in Edinburgh painting armorial bearings on carriage doors, and took him to London. Upon his return to Edinburgh, he painted portraits, including a famous portrait of Robert Burns; but turned his attention, after 1793, exclusively to landscapes.