Although Sorolla was primarily known for his figurative paintings, his work offers valuable lessons to landscape painters, who are always interested in finding ways to represent the luminosity of natural light. In Sorolla's world shadows are not dark, empty places where no light can be seen. The shadows in "La Bata Rosa" are filled with light; they glow. Color has great power to suggest natural light; however, if a color becomes extremely dark, its color identity become much less apparent. To avoid this undesirable effect, Sorolla keeps his shadow values within the middle range, thereby allowing them to express more of their intrinsic color identity, and color — as opposed to extreme value contrasts — feels more like light. This technique was employed extensively by the Impressionists.
Sorolla also reinforces the color contrasts by paying close attention to the temperature differences between the light and the shadows. The woman's dress is orange in both the light and shadow, but a much cooler variety in the shadow, with hints of violet. Says Charles Sovek in his article "Light and Color, Sorolla Style" (Artist's Magazine, December 1990), "... Sorolla kept reasonably close to the age-old maxim that every object in light should be painted a middle value or above, and every object in shadow should be a middle value or below."
La Bata Rosa, 1916,
oil on canvas, 210 x 128 cm