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Sewing the Sail by Joaquín Sorolla (1896) (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by to c/traditional_art@lemmy.world
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Artist: Joaquín Sorolla

Medium: Oil on canvas

Year: 1896

Cosiendo la vela (English: Sewing the Sail) is a large-format painting by Joaquín Sorolla from 1896. It is classified as Realism and belongs to the period of the artist’s career following his return to his native Spain after his time in Italy. The painting depicts the light-filled patio of a house in Valencia, where several people are busy repairing the sail for a fishing boat. Sorolla first exhibited it in 1897 at the Salon de Paris.

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Joaquín Sorolla’s colorful oil painting Sewing the Sail depicts five women and two men repairing a large white boat sail in a sunny courtyard. Surrounded by flowers, potted plants, and railings, the group works among bright white, green, yellow, brown, and blue tones.
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[–] 21 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Oh thats lovely, thank you for posting! Not often I see my trade in art. If you’re curious, the reason it’s tied up like that is to tension the luff for sewing. The luff is the edge of the mainsail that attaches to the mast. The luff rope is made from three strand rope that stretches when it is under load. So when you sew the sail to it, it needs to be under tension/load for the cloth to be flat when it’s hoisted. You can see the rope sewn to the edge where it trails down the post.

It really does look like that even now, though maybe with not so many people lol. The artist has done a masterful job of depicting the scope of the job, the amount of fabric, the folds of the cloth. I’m going to get a print made for sure!

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  • [–] 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Hey wow! I make marine canvas and enclosures! I can't believe there's another sewer on lemmy, let alone another marine industry professional! Hello!

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  • [–] 4 points 21 hours ago (1 child)

    Heeeeey! Nice to meet ya! There’s at least three of us, I was talking with a guy that does canvas in Ontario a few years ago haha. I’d imagine there’s more of us from the industry if you’d include all the areas like composites and mechanics, but sewing is definitely the niche of a niche industry.

    I never seriously got into canvas, wasn’t trained to sew anything with frames, just the stuff that goes with sails like covers and UV. Though I’m going to be making a dodger and enclosure for my own boat eventually, eek. I was on the sailmaking/rigging/splicing side of things. I applaud your skills, canvas is an art!

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  • [–] 1 point 18 hours ago

    I was talking with a guy that does canvas in Ontario a few years ago haha.

    That could have been me LOL! I'm in Ontario, although I do know a few others. Canvas isn't as scary as everyone thinks, really, but maybe that's just because I know all the tricks. It's funny because I look at sail making as a black art! But if you know how to operate a sewing machine you've got the tough part down. It's the pattern making that really makes or breaks the job. And if you copy an old thing then you might be building off the other guys mistakes. The best advice I can give you in making a dodger is make a garbage one first. Make it out of bedsheets or any old cloth. You'll learn so much and get an understanding of all the parts and how they fit together and the second will be 50x better. Nobody heeds that advice but it's true.

    Anyway, let's meet back here in a few years so we can relive this experience again and again!

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