“One beautiful, warm Madrid morning in July, Sorolla was painting my wife’s portrait in her garden, and I was watching her next to her. The three of us were alone under a branched arbor. He stood up. Once he headed for the study, he fell while climbing the stairs, realizing that he had stumbled, my wife and I rushed to his aid. We stood up but he couldn’t help himself, he grabbed the left half of his face, with a motionless gesture that evoked pain, pity, compassion, a childlike and sad expression. paralysis; years before a fallout). Despite this, Sorolla, rebelling against fate, which had already seized her with her implacable iron hand, wanted to continue painting. We tried in vain to dissuade him. She persisted with the anger of a spoiled child who was surprised to be upset. The pallet was falling from his left hand; His right hand, holding the brush tighter, barely obeyed him. He gave four strokes, long, hesitant, hopeless; four silent screams coming from the threshold of another life already. Unforgettable pathetic brush strokes. ‘I can’t’ he muttered with tears in your eyes. As if absorbed by the remnant of light from his intelligence, he was suddenly almost extinguished by an absurd and invisible breath, and said: ‘Another scumbag, what does it matter to the world?’”.
does he write Ramon Perez de Ayala who tells paralysis That Sorolla suffered that day. The artist participated doctors Simarro and Marañón. As the months passed, he was experiencing some improvements and was even able to walk again. “But in December 1920 he suffered two more seizures. The artist’s health only deteriorated, making it clear that he would never paint again,” says Ana Muñoz of the Sorolla Museum’s Documentation Department.
Transfer to Cercedilla
In the summer of 1923, the family moved to their daughter Maria’s house in Istanbul. chervil. Added to this paralysis kidney conditionIt caused a fever to rise in the first days of August. ‘Lord of the light’ at last Died on August 10, 1923. 100 years ago today.
Sorolla died at 16:30 at the age of 60. The death certificate that Levante-EMV has access to, By Grupo Prensa Ibérica, preserved in the Sorolla Museum in Madrid. Blanca de la Válgoma, from the Documentation department of the painters museum in Madrid, said: “After an illness of more than three years, Sorolla died surrounded by his wife, children Joaquín and María, and her husband Francisco Pons Arnau. High fever.” she had lost consciousness in her final hours, so she was unable to receive moral help and was only extremely disabled. In his chest was a scapula of the Forsaken Virgin, to whom he was very attached. the chapel was set up, burning from the main rooms of the house and The body was placed on the same bed where he rested in life.decorated only with a bunch of flowers placed by her daughter María”.
Death certificate details Sorolla died as a result of “pyelonephritis as a result of the performed medical certification and recognition.”collects the document signed by the municipal judge and the Cercedilla court clerk in August of that year.
The news quickly spread among the painter’s family and friends, and besides the preparations for the funeral, the establishment of the funeral chapel in Madrid and the transfer of the artist to Valencia, where he wanted to be buried, began. Valencian painter Fernando Viscai moved to Villalba, where the sculptor is located. Mariano Benliure, also a close friend of Sorolla, to tell her the news. He went to Cercedilla to perform. painter’s death mask. Francisco Pons left Guadalajara at dawn to inform Sorolla’s youngest daughter, Elena. On Saturday morning, the painter’s son was in charge of telegraphing relatives in Valencia, various friends and acquaintances, and prominent Valencian officials.
king’s message
“Sorolla’s only sister, Concha, took the mail train to Madrid as soon as she heard the news. King Alfonso XIIIDe la Válgoma sent a telegram of heartfelt condolences from Santander and wrote to Benlliure asking him to act as his representative at the funeral,” says De la Válgoma. The people of Valencia learned the news when it was placed on the transparent pages of the newspapers. Many artists went to Cercedilla to accompany the body on a special train, on which newspaper editors also traveled,” recalls De la Válgoma.
The artist is today at the Sorolla Museum and Valencia General Cemetery. He will take a place in front of his grave Flower presentation as a commemoration of August 10, 1923.