The Forest. La Granja

In the autumn of 1906 Sorolla came to the royal gardens at La Granja, near Segovia, on business, with a portrait of King Alfonso XIII to paint. He liked the place enough to return the next summer with his wife and children, and this time he painted purely for himself. What held him were the old trees. He spent long days outdoors watching sunlight drop through the branches and break into shifting patches on the ground, and he built those patches with quick, loaded strokes and a hot palette. The gardens at La Granja had been laid out in the 18th century in imitation of Versailles, and by Sorolla's day their planted avenues had grown into the deep, tangled canopy he set himself to catch here.