Vision of Spain: a set of paintings

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Willard Spiegelman, A Series Shouts ¡Viva España! Wall Street Journal, June 3, 2023, at page C14 (in the column "Masterpiece," introducing " 'Vision of Spain' (1912-19). by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida").
https://www.wsj.com/articles/vis ... iva-espana-983cc035

Note:
(a)
(i) English dictionary:
* series (n; plural series)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/series
(ii) Joaquín Sorolla
(1863 – 1923l Spanish full name: Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, Valencian full name: Joaquim Sorolla i Bastida; born to father "also named Joaquín Sorolla, and his wife, Concepción Bastida")
spent his life in Spain and did not emigrate to US.

This is a simplified version: his father and mother had two surnames, too. See paragraph 1 at
Spanish naming customs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_naming_customs
(iii) "Hispanic Society Museum and Library on Audubon Terrace in upper Manhattan"
(A) Hispanic Society of America
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_Society_of_America
(1904- )
(B) Audubon Terrace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audubon_Terrace
("in the Washington Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan")
• Upper Manhattan is from southern boundary (variously defined) all the way up to Marble Hill.
• terrace (building)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrace_(building)
("is an external, raised, open, flat [and always paved] area in either a landscape" or on a flat roof)
(iv) Archer Milton Huntington
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_Milton_Huntington
(1870 – 1955)
is adopted stepson of Collis Potter Huntington
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collis_Potter_Huntington
(section 3 Family relationship: "Huntington remarried on July 12, 1884, to Arabella D. Worsham (1851–1924). She brought to the marriage her son Archer Milton Worsham, from her first marriage, whom Huntington adopted that year. At fourteen, he became known as Archer Milton Huntington. There were rumors that Huntington had a longer relationship with Arabella and that he was the biological father of her son")

A step-child retains the surname of his biological father. An adopted child gets the new surname from adoptive parent, who is responsible for financially raising him (biological father no longer needs to pay child support), and confers inheritance to him together with biological children.
(v) "The series dazzles, owing to its panoramic sweep, its sumptuous colors and often ravishing details."
(A) ravishing (adj): "unusually attractive, pleasing, or striking"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ravishing

How come? The verb ravish is usually applied to war-torn territory where armies plunder.
(B) ravishing (adj)
https://www.etymonline.com/word/ravishing
(vi) "In his other works, Sorolla was a keen portrayer of life’s unpleasant realities, such as disabled children whom he depicted at the beach"

Sad Inheritance!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Inheritance!
(1899; Spanish: ¡Triste herencia!)

choi

(b) Spanish-English dictionary:
* triste (adj; from Latin [adj] trīstis [sad])
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/triste
   ^ Its plural is tristes. But masculine and feminine forms are identical. Why?  Spanish adjectives
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_adjectives  
   ("Spanish adjectives can be broadly divided into two groups: those whose lemma (the base form, the form found in dictionaries) ends in -o, and those whose lemma does not")
* herencia (n; from Latin [noun masculine or feminine] hērēs [heir, heiress]): "inheritance"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/herencia
* pesca (noun feminine; from [verb] pescar [to fish]): "fishing"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pesca   (Compare Spanish noun masculine pez fish, from Latin noun masculine piscis fish.)
* atún (noun masculine; from Arabic اَلتُّنّ at-tunn tuna)  (Recall Arabic language reads from right to left, so at os pn the right end. The English noun tuna also came from Arabic, via Spanish.)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atún
   ^ Arabic definite article  ٱلْـ
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_definite_article
   (introduction)
* mercado (noun masculine; from Latin [noun masculine] mercātus market, trade): "market"  (This Spanish word, together with English nouns market and merchant, all ultimately derived from Latin verb mercari to trade, from merc-, [noun feminine] merx merchandise.)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mercado
* romería (noun feminine; from [noun masculine] romero [pilgrim (to Rome)] ): "a religious pilgrimage"   (Italian surname Romeo is from personal name of the same spelling, which also means pilgrim (to Rome). )
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/romería
* rubio (noun or adjective masculine): "blond" (In Spanish, noun or adjective masculine rojo is red.)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rubio
* gallego (noun or adjective masculine): "Galician" (Noun means an inhabitant.)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gallego
* pescado (noun masculine; from Latin piscātus, perfect passive participle of [verb] piscor to fish): "fish that has been caught; food fish"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pescado
* bravo (adjective masculine):
"1: angry, furious
* * *
5: agitated (sea)
6: wild (animal)"  (The English interjection bravo came from Italian of the same spelling, meaning (obsolete) brave, wild (of animals), harsh (of places). )
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bravo

choi

(c)
(i) "they amount to a circular trip through Spain, from Andalusia in the South, eastward to Aragon and Valencia, through Castille in the center (subject of the largest picture), then Ayamonte and Seville in the southwest."
(A) autonomous communities of Spain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_communities_of_Spain
, whose map does not show Ayamonte and Serville, because the former is a town and the latter, a city. are municipalities.
(B) Ayamonte
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayamonte
(map)
• Ayamonte. Andalucia.org ("official Andalusia tourism website"), undated
https://www.andalucia.org/en/ayamonte
("The last village in the province, it is situated on the banks of the Guadiana, on the frontier with Portugal, on uneven stony ground, full of slopes and hills. * * * The origin of its name is from the Greek term Anapote which means 'on the river' ")
• Guadiana
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadiana
("829 kilometres (515 mi)")

In the top map on the right, you can see the river (blue) flows within Portugal before forming, in its last stretch, Spanish-Portuguese border (black). Further, the river does not form the boundary between Extremadura on the north and Andalusia on the south -- two autonomous communities of Spain; rather, the river flows within Extremadura.

The i in the ia can be pronounced separately from a (making up two syllables) OR become y (and ia becomes one syllable). See Spanish phonology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_phonology
(section 2 Vowels, section 2.2 Diphthongs and triphthongs: "sequences of vowels in hiatus become diphthongs in fast speech; when this happens, one vowel becomes non-syllabic * * * In the case of verbs like aliviar ('relieve'), diphthongs result from the suffixation of normal verbal morphology onto a stem-final /j/ (that is, aliviar would be |alibj| + |ar|)" )

Regarding English, not Spanish, noun hiatus in linguistics:
hiatus. Encyclopaedia Britannica, undated
https://www.britannica.com/art/hiatus
("hiatus, in prosody, a break in sound between two vowels that occur together without an intervening consonant, both vowels being clearly enunciated. The two vowels may be either within one word, as in the words Vienna and naive, or the final and initial vowels of two successive words, as in the phrases 'see it' and 'go in.' Hiatus is the opposite of elision, the dropping or blurring of the second vowel; it is also distinct from diphthongization, in which the vowels blend to form one sound")

hiatus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_hiatus
("Some languages do not have diphthongs * * * Examples are Japanese aoi (青い) 'blue/green' * * * with three syllables")

semivowel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semivowel
("Examples of semivowels in English are the consonants y and w, in yes and west, respectively")
(C) Seville
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seville
(Spanish: Sevilla; "capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville"/ by Guadalquivir river/ table: population 684k, 4th in Spain[, after Madrid (3.2m), Barcelona (1.6m), and Valencia (800k) in that order])
(iii) "Of accuracy there is plenty * * * Like his contemporary John Singer Sargent, Sorolla was a master of whiteness: In the Ayamonte panel, we find white as the container of all colors—pink and green, blue and yellow, many tonalities in a thick impasto."
(A) "Of accuracy there is plenty" is the same as "There is plenty of accuracy."
(B) John Singer Sargent
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Singer_Sargent
(1856 – 1925; American; "Born in Florence to American parents, he was trained in Paris before moving to London [where he died and was buried], living most of his life in Europe")
• View his paintings, focusing on whiteness.
• The English surname sargent and English noun Sergeant (both words are pronounced the same) share the same ancestor (Old French sergent servant), which in turn came ultimately from Latin verb servīre to serve.
(C) For name origin, see Caleb Pike, Extremadura – Maps, History, and Culture. MapofUS.org, last updated on May 9, 2023
https://www.mapofus.org/extremadura-maps/

two consecutive paragraphs:

"Extremadura got its name from the Muslims who invaded the region. They called the land to the far west Extremadura because it was a region that was outside of the Moorish territory. As portions of Extremadura was conquered, the borders would fluctuate. In the late 11th Century, the name Extremadura was given to a region further south, which included the cities of Salamanca and Avila.

"During this time, Castilla y Leon had also created a territory called Extremadura. Their territory of Extremadura included the cities of Ciudad Rodrigo to Badajoz. For centuries, Extremadura was referred to as two separate territories. King Ferdinand III finally abolished the separation of the territories and created one unified territory that would be the territory Extremadura that we know today.
(D) For individual paintings, see Vision of Spain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_of_Spain
("Despite the immensity of the canvases, Sorolla painted all but one en plein air, and travelled to the specific locales to paint them")
• French-English dictionary:
* plein air (French adjective)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plein%20air
(pronunciation)
   ^  plein (adjective masculine): "full"
   https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plein
   * air (noun masculine): "air"   (The same Wiktionary page shows ENGLISH noun air comes "From Middle English aire, from Old French air, from Latin āēr, from Ancient Greek ἀήρ (aḗr). Displaced native Old English lyft. More at lift, loft.")
   https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/air
* en plein jour (French phrase)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/en%20plein%20jour
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_of_Spain
Section 5 Full series shows resolution as good as that of Hispanic Society museum's.
http://hispanicsociety.emuseum.com/search/vision%2520of%2520spain

Soon, you will notice that in this Wiki page, individual paintings have subtitles, some of which are in English, others of which are in Spanish. But if you look at individual paintings in Hisppanic Society, none of the paintings has a subtitle -- only place names.
(E) Section 5 of the Wiki page for "Vision of Spain" has the caption: "Ayamonte. La pesca del atún (1919)."

The words in the subtitle are defined in Note (b).

choi

(d) "In 'Extremadura, The Market,' the pigs, when viewed up close, are tinted blue, green and brown. Bovines in 'Galicia, The Cattle Fair' are rich blobs of burnt orange, salmon pink, yellow and brown. In 'Seville, The Dance,'
(i)
(A) The Wiki page for "Vision of Spain"identifies the first as "Extremadura. El mercado (1917)."
(B) The Spanish word mercado is defined in Note (b).
(ii)
(A) The Wiki page for "Vision of Spain"identifies the second as "Galicia. La romería (1915)."
(B) The romería is defined in Note (b).
(C) Galicia is noted for bond cattle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubia_Gallega

The rubia and gallega are feminine forms of rubio and gallego. The latter two are defined in Note (b).
(D) Still I search cattle market, festival, or pilgrimage of Galicia and find nothing similar to the painting. Finally I come up with the following, which stated that the painting was a composite.

Korey Anne Smith (student in Department of Modern Languages, Westminster College, New Wilmington, PA), Joaquín Sorolla's, Vision of Spain, As a Map of Regional Identity in Spain. Eastern Washington University, Cheney, WA: Proceedings of The National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR), Apr 16-18, 2015, pages 498 (starting page), 503
http://libjournals.unca.edu/ncur ... Korey-Ann-FINAL.pdf
("The ninth painting, La romería, was painted in Galicia (fig.6). Sorolla included different symbolisms of Galicia in the painting: 'La vaca representa la fertilidad de esta tierra, como también lo hacen la cesta del mercado, llena a
rebosar, y el agua que llegamos a vislumbrar, que nos da una pista sobre la abundancia de pescado en los mares gallegos.'[footnote 4] Cattle raising was the principle source of income in Galicia and perhaps the people in this painting are
getting ready to sell their animals and goods at market. * * * Painted in Cataluña, El pescado is the tenth painting of the series (fig.7). The Mediterranean essence of this canvas can be seen in the yellow sun, blue coast, and steep cliffs of the Costa Brava")
• Catalonia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalonia
(Catalan: Catalunya, Spanish: Cataluña; section 1 Etymology and pronunciation)
• The pescado is defined in Note (b).
Costa Brava
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Brava
(section 1 Etymology)

The word brava is defined in Note (b).
(iii) The Wiki page for "Vision of Spain"identifies the last as "Seville, The Dance (1915)."
(A) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seville
("Despite its name, the sevillana dance, commonly presented as flamenco, is not thought to be of Sevillan origin. However, the folksongs called sevillanas are authentically Sevillan, as is the four-part dance performed with them")
(B) Most online English dictionaries have Sevilllian -- accent on the second syllable -- as the adjective or noun (inhabitant), but a smattering has Sevillan also (Wiktionary; English-Spanish dictionary: https://en.bab.la). The corresponding Spanish adjective and noun masculine is Sevillano.
(C) The sevillana is Spanish, not English, word. In Spanish language, the letter ll is pronounced the same as English letter y.
(D)
• flamenco
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamenco
("Not to be confused with Flamingo * * * developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia * * * The oldest record of flamenco music dates to 1774 in the book")

The Spanish letter g is pronounced the same as English letter h when the letter is followed by letter e or i. The Spanish letter g is pronounced the same as English letter g (as in get, not George) when the letter is followed by letter a, o, or u.
• flamenco (n; Did You Know?)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flamenco

choi

(e) "In 'Valencia,' couples on horseback accompany a rich treasure trove of ripe oranges, palpably heavy, hanging from a pole. The bullfighters in 'Seville' stride out in the arena before an audience that is massed half in light, half in shadow, with no individual faces depicted."
(i) at 504
http://libjournals.unca.edu/ncur ... Korey-Ann-FINAL.pdf
("The first painting [of two that Corolla did in Valencia] is called Las grupas (fig.8). This painting is a celebration of Corpus Christi, which is one of Valencia's largest celebrations. The characters in the painting are dressed in traditional clothing used during the festival. The two men on horses are carrying the Valencian coat of arms. The men carrying the clusters of oranges represent Caleb and Jacob, who carried grapes from the Promised Land. The carriers of the oranges are dressed in clothing typically worn by Muslims, which shows the magnitude of the Islamic influence in Valencia. This town cavalcade is carrying oranges instead of grapes because the coast of Valencia is lined with miles of orange plantations. This large-scale cultivation of oranges is what makes Valencia unique from other regions in Spain") (footnote omitted)
(A) The "unca.edu" in the URL indicates University of North Carolina, Ashville.
(B) The Spanish noun feminine grupa means English noun hindquarter.
(C) Corpus Christi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Christi
(" ('body of Christ' in Latin) may refer to: Feast of Corpus Christi [click and view table for date], a Christian solemnity which honors the institution of the Holy Eucharist")
(D) "Valencian coat of arms"
• That was an error. Not Valencian coat of arms, but its flag. See Valencia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valencia
(table for both flag and coat of arms)
(E) "Caleb and Jacob, who carried grapes from the Promised Land"
• That was an error. Not Jacob, but Joshua.
• The 12 Spies. Jehovah's Witnesses, undated
https://www.jw.org/en/library/bo ... 3/joshua-and-caleb/
("But two of the spies [Caleb and Joshua] trust in Jehovah, and try to calm the people")
• The Twelve Spies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Spies
(section 1 About the spies: names)

There is a Wiki page for Caleb, which tells you how to pronounce the name.
(F) English dictionary:
* cavalcade (n; Did You Know?)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cavalcade

• Latin-English dictionary:
* caballus (noun masculine): "pack horse"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caballus
* equus (noun masculine): "horse"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/equus
(ii) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seville
("The city's bullring, the Real Maestranza * * * The venue can accommodate 14,000 spectators")

choi

(f) "Serene women look directly out at the viewer in both 'Elche' and 'Guipúzcoa' as a balance to the more vibrant activity (harvesting and bowling) behind them."
(i) Elche
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elche
(a city in Valencia)

"The Spanish 'ch' is pronounced like the 'ch' in the word 'chief.' ": from the Web.
(ii) For Guipúzcoa, see Gipuzkoa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gipuzkoa  
(Spanish: Guipúzcoa)


(g) "The Hispanic Society also owns the preparatory gouache sketches for the paintings, some of which were on display for the first time in the US at the National Arts Club on Gramercy Park this spring. * * * When Sorolla was enjoying his successes here, the 1913 Armory show brought to Manhattan new, daring paintings by unknowns with names like Cézanne, Duchamp, Matisse and Van Gogh. Teddy Roosevelt * * * looked at the modern works and said, 'that's not art.' "
"
(i) Watercolor and Gouache: What's the Difference?. Chapman University, Feb 18, 2016 (blog)
https://blogs.chapman.edu/collec ... ats-the-difference/
("A primary difference between the two paints is that gouache is more opaque than watercolor. When a layer of watercolor is applied, the white paper and any preliminary drawings underneath will show through, whereas when a layer of gouache is applied, the paper will not show through nearly as much")

The French noun feminine gouache is pronounced in English-speaking countries as /ɡwɑː:ʃ/.
(ii) National Arts Club
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Arts_Club
is a private, non-profit organization.
(iii) Gramercy Park
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramercy_Park
(a private park; section 2 Etymology)
(iv) Armory Show
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armory_Show
("was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America * * * The three-city exhibition started in New York City's 69th Regiment Armory, on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets, from February 17 until March 15, 1913. The exhibition went on to the Art Institute of Chicago and then to The Copley Society of Art in Boston") (footnote omitted)

(h) Holy Week in Seville
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Week_in_Seville
("the week leading up to Easter * * * dressed in penitential robes with capirotes, tall, pointed hoods with eye-holes. The capirotes were designed so the faithful could repent in anonymity, without being recognised as self-confessed sinners")