BOURGEOIS HOLIDAYMAKERS IN EL CABANYAL

“At the beginning of the 20th century, the seaside villages were connected to the summer

colonies established on the beach by Valencia’s bourgeoisie, where the city’s cheerful

shopkeepers and fishermen driven by elemental passions lived side by side for a few months

each year. Some lived in colonial-style houses, while others survived in miserable shacks; some

wore wide-brimmed hats or Panama hats and dressed in white drill cloth, others went barefoot

and kept a knife hidden in their sash”.

Manuel Vicent

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Vicent recounts (and Sorolla paints) that at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the beach of El Cabanyal was a microcosm in itself, where all social classes mixed—workers and bourgeois families, craftsmen and fishermen.

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Sorolla portrays this bourgeois world with an almost two-colored palette: whites for the clothing and blues for the sea, often featuring family members such as his wife Clotilde and their children María, Elena, and Joaquín.