Siesta

Today is our last Sunday with Museo Sorolla - I hope you enjoyed their collection presented throughout April :) We prepared something special for the next month too - stay tuned!
Sorolla often painted his family at leisure. This subject area allowed the artist considerable expressive freedom, since in many cases these paintings were not intended for sale but painted for himself. Siesta belongs to this group of personal work. Painted during the family’s summer stay in San Sebastian, the conception of this canvas shows great freedom and modernity. As in other very personal paintings, Sorolla excludes the horizon and develops the whole scene at ground level so that it is much closer to the viewer. Four female figures are resting on the grass: the artist’s wife, his two daughters, and one of their cousins. Three are asleep and the fourth is reading, lying face down. The brush strokes in this painting are unusually quick and sketchy even for Sorolla, and he seems to snatch up his brushes, anxious to capture this fleeting moment of peace, with the extraordinary expanse of green grass which cushions the figures on its cool softness. Hope you are having a good siesta today — like the ladies on the painting :)