Kissing the Relic

Sorolla’s career was confirmed in Madrid, where he settled in 1890. Kissing the Relic belongs to a period in which his own personal style was beginning to evolve, bringing together his past experience and achieving notable successes. During this period Sorolla based his compositions on his skill as a draughtsman, and on his meticulous descriptions and wise use of light and colour in genre scenes (some of them anecdotal) according to bourgeois taste. In this work a procession of faithful is reverently awaiting to kiss the relic held by the parish priest in a side chapel of the San Pablo church in Valencia. This act of veneration marks the end of the mass and is the opportunity taken by an altar boy to sell religious pictures - the scene is therefore a fine example of genre painting.