Patio de San Juan de la Cartuja de Porta Coeli, Valencia

This 1896 oil painting by the Valencian artist Joaquín Sorolla shows the patio of San Juan at the Carthusian monastery of Porta Coeli, near Valencia, bathed in strong sunlight. On the right rises a rubble-stone wall with a stone bench, a wooden door and two small penthouse roofs. In the foreground, a round-arched entrance opens onto a vestibule and an outdoor staircase, while the upper floor has a gallery of arches supported by columns, beneath a projecting roof resting on corbels. Patios were already a familiar subject for other painters, yet Sorolla found his own angle by focusing on a simple, almost unremarkable space rather than grand, emblematic buildings. The work plays sun against shadow through a range of ochres and bluish greys that stand out against the white walls. The composition follows a pattern typical of such scenes: an empty foreground that leads the eye toward an open door in the background.

Painter

Joaquín Sorolla

Date

1896

Medium

oil paint

Dimensions

57 × 44 cm

Museum

Sorolla Museum, Madrid

Depicts

Porta Coeli Charterhouse

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