Chicos en la playa

Sorolla painted this in the summer of 1909, on the beach at Valencia on Spain's Mediterranean coast, where he had grown up. Three boys lie in the shallow water at the edge of the surf, seen from above, their wet backs catching the full midday sun. He worked outdoors and fast, straight onto the canvas, chasing the way light broke on skin that was still running with seawater. This was the culmination of a whole run of pictures he made of children in the water, and here the bodies take over almost the entire canvas. There is no story and no setting to speak of, just the glare of a Valencian afternoon and the violet shadows the sun throws across three wet boys.