Catalonia. The fish

Painted in 1915 for the Hispanic Society of America mural cycle and held by that institution, 'Catalonia. The fish' was one of the regional panels from Sorolla's great Vision of Spain project, documenting the fishing culture of the Catalan coast. The Hispanic Society commission — a fourteen-panel decorative cycle depicting Spain's different regions — was the largest undertaking of Sorolla's career, occupying the years from 1912 to 1919. The Catalan panel centred on the fishing economy of the Costa Brava or the Barcelona waterfront, with the fish catch as a synecdoche for the broader working-class maritime culture of the region. Catalonia's fishing communities operated differently from those of Valencia — larger port cities, different boat types, different species targeted — and Sorolla documented these distinctions with the ethnographic attention he brought to all the regional panels. The fish themselves — gleaming, silver, piled in baskets or spread on the quay — offered him a concentrated study in wet, reflective surfaces and the specific light qualities of a Mediterranean harbour.

Fish displayed in quantity on a quayside created an unusual subject combining the still-life tradition with the social documentation of the working harbour. Wet fish scales catch light as multiple tiny reflective surfaces, creating a complex scintillating effect that Sorolla rendered through loaded, flickering brushwork.