Start a Little Fire

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

The Old Garden of the Alcazar in Seville Oil Joaquin Sorolla

While driving home from seeing the exhibition, Sorolla and America, at the Meadows Museum in Dallas, we discussed the artist’s phenomenally rapid rise from young art student to one of the most famous painters in the world at the time.

Granted, Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida was born with an outstanding talent, but talent isn’t usually enough. Painting is a craft, and the importance of good training cannot be overstated. Fortunately, his enthusiasm for drawing and painting was noticed by his foster parents early on, and they saw to it that he received special art instruction. It is interesting to note that although Sorolla was also trained as a locksmith - his foster-father’s trade - he was not pressured to remain a locksmith. Instead, he was offered better art schooling which led to winning a competition to study in Rome. From there, he worked extremely hard to take advantage of every opportunity to win the inte…