CERRO DEL CABALLO PAINTED BY JOAQUIN SOROLLA

JOAQUIN SOROLLA Y BATISDA (1863-1923)

Cerro del Cabalo (3,051m  -10, 010 ft) 

Spain (Andalusia)

The mountain 

Cerro del Caballo  (3,051m  -10, 010 ft) or  Pico del Caballo or simply Caballo ("horse") is a mountain in the Sierra Nevada, Spain. It is the westernmost three thousander of the range. Cerro del Caballo offers great views on the neighbouring mountains like : Veleta, Mulhacen and Alcazaba. The ridge starting from Caballo continues several km almost at the same altitude turning at the Tajos de la Virgen mountain ( 3,237 m). The ridge has become very popular during the recent years, as it provides an easy walk and scramble during summer months. From Tajos de la Virgen the ridge turns towards south west ending at the south side of the Caballo mountain and making a big Y letter. The highest peak on the southern ridge is Tajo de los Machos (3,088m). At the middle of the two ridges starts the river Rio Lanjaron, 400 m lower. Rio Lanjaron flows several km down towards the town of Lanjaron. There is also a few lakes in this wide mountain valley.

Caballo mountain can be accessed from the towns of Lanjaron, Durcal and also from the Sierra Nevada Ski Resort. The Ski Resort is located at Pradollano, also the north west flank of the Veleta mountain. There is a hut at the east side of the mountain at 2800 m altitude. The hut covers eight people and can be used all year around. It belongs into category of bivouac, which means it is built to give protection only. Huts like Poqueira hut are guarded and usually provide meals and heating. Other hut which can be used is the Elorrieta hut on the top of the Tajos de la Virgen mountain. Nearest water taking place is the river Rio Lanjaron at the south side of the mountain. There is also tiny rivers on the west side of the mountain at 2500 m altitude. These seasonal rivers can be difficult to find sometimes. During the winter months Sierra Nevada mountains have Alpine conditions, even there is not much glacier to be met anymore. Ice axe and crampons are essential.

The painter 
Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida  was a Spanish painter.  Sorolla excelled in the painting of portraits, landscapes, and monumental works of social and historical themes. His most typical works are characterized by a dexterous representation of the people and landscape under the sunlight of his native land.

Sorolla's influence on some other Spanish painters, such as Alberto Pla y Rubio and Julio Romero de Torres, was so noted that they are described as "sorollista."

After his death, Sorolla's widow, Clotilde Garcia del Castillo, left many of his paintings to the Spanish public. The paintings eventually formed the collection that is now known as the Museo Sorolla, which was the artist's house in Madrid. The museum opened in 1932.

Sorolla's work is represented in museums throughout Spain, Europe, America, and in many private collections in Europe and America. In 1933, J. Paul Getty purchased ten Impressionist beach scenes made by Sorolla, several of which are now housed in the J. Paul Getty Museum.

In 2007 many of his works were exhibited at the Petit Palais in Paris, alongside those of John Singer Sargent, a contemporary who painted in a similarly impressionist-influenced manner. In 2009, there was a special exhibition of his works at the Prado in Madrid, and in 2010, the exhibition visited the Oscar Niemeyer Museum in Curitiba, Brazil.

From 5 December 2011 to 10 March 2012, several of Sorolla's works were exhibited in Queen Sofia Spanish Institute, in New York. This exhibition included pieces used during Sorolla's eight-year research for The Vision of Spain.

An exhibition titled Sorolla & America explored Sorolla’s unique relationship with the United States in the early twentieth century. The exhibition opened at the Meadows Museum at SMU in Dallas (13 December 2013 - 19 April 2014). From there it traveled to the San Diego Museum of Art (30 May - 26 August 2014) and then to Fundaciun MAPFRE in Madrid (23 September 2014 - 11 January 2015).

The Spanish National Dance Company honored the painter's The Vision of Spain by producing a ballet Sorolla based on the paintings

Early in 1911, Sorolla visited the United States for a second time, and exhibited 152 new paintings at the Saint Louis Art Museum and 161 at the Art Institute of Chicago a few weeks later. Later that year Sorolla met Archie Huntington in Paris and signed a contract to paint a series of oils on life in Spain. These 14 magnificent murals, installed to this day in the Hispanic Society of America building in Manhattan, range from 12 to 14 feet in height, and total 227 feet in length.The major commission of his career, it would dominate the later years of Sorolla's life.

Huntington had envisioned the work depicting a history of Spain, but the painter preferred the less specific 'Vision of Spain', eventually opting for a representation of the regions of the Iberian Peninsula, and calling it The Provinces of Spain. Despite the immensity of the canvases, Sorolla painted all but one en plein air, and travelled to the specific locales to paint them: Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Elche, Seville, Andalusia, Extremadura, Galicia, Guipuzcoa, Castile, Leon, and Ayamonte, at each site painting models posed in local costume. Each mural celebrated the landscape and culture of its region, panoramas composed of throngs of laborers and locals. By 1917 he was, by his own admission, exhausted. He completed the final panel by July 1919.

Sorolla suffered a stroke in 1920, while painting a portrait in his garden in Madrid. Paralyzed for over three years, he died on 10 August 1923. He is buried in the Cementeri de Valencia, Spain.

The Sorolla Room, housing the Provinces of Spain at the Hispanic Society of America, opened to the public in 1926. The room closed for remodeling in 2008, and the murals toured museums in Spain for the first time. The Sorolla Room reopened in 2010, with the murals on permanent display.