José Navarro Llorens

JOSÉ NAVARRO LLORENS (Valencia, 1867 - 1923).
"Arab souk".
Oil on board.
Signed and dedicated "Almost a replica, exceptionally, for my great friend Joaquín Sorolla" in the upper right corner.
Measurements: 40 x 70 cm; 57 x 87 cm (frame).

The dedication that appears in the upper right corner of our work is understood to be due to the fact that José Navarro Llorens was a fellow student of Sorolla, who held him in great esteem and admiration. Both studied at the School of Fine Arts of San Carlos in Valencia and became friends. Although he was not a direct disciple of Sorolla, Navarro Llorens was inspired by his style, albeit with a more realistic and costumbrist approach.

"Zoco árabe" (Arab Souk) is part of the orientalist luminist trend that attracted several Spanish painters of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, Navarro Llorens avoids an exoticizing or fanciful look to approach the Arab world from an empathetic, almost documentary perspective, without losing his aesthetic sensibility. The painting is a vibrant symphony of light and chromatic warmth, a fragment of the daily hustle and bustle of a North African village that combines the costumbrista look with an atmospheric sensitivity inherited from Valencian luminism. In the foreground, the sandy and dusty street unfolds in a fugitive line that leads the eye towards some arcades in the distance. On both sides of this main road, the stores open to the outside are lined up, improvised on the adobe facades. Special prominence is given to the ceramic sellers: male figures, seated in the immediate shade of their houses, surrounded by earthenware jars and pitchers, glazed or unglazed, of different formats and colors. The shadows, brief and defined, contrast with the open luminosity of the street, generating a tension that adds vitality to the whole. Children run through the central space, small whirlwinds of movement that energize the composition. The naturalness of their gestures and their vitality underline the living condition of the souk, moving away from the exotic postcard. In "Arab Souk", José Navarro Llorens manages to combine the scorching light of the Maghreb midday with the silent dignity of the traditional trades.