Beaching the boat

The present work is an excellent example of Mongrell’s bravura application of paint to depict the brute force of the fishermen who labour against the elements to drag the vessel ashore. The thick textural brushstrokes combined with the vibrant colour reflect Mongrell’s training under Sorolla. A fellow Valencian, Mongrell shared many of Sorolla’s enthusiasm, including the latter’s delight in recording everyday life by the sea. Yet Mongrell was very much an artist in his own right, as the present work attests. He represents the most intimate and vital Valencia, with a technique that is perhaps more modern and with views that demonstrate a more intimate experience of everyday life in the region.
Cropped close along the four edges, Mongrell focusses the viewer’s attention on the fishermen’s struggle, making us participants in the scene. There is no extraneous detail, no bigger picture, the subject being reduced to its essentials. The resulting image is uncompromising in the expression of masculine physicality, the emotion of which is further underlined through the robust manner in which the paint has been applied to the canvas. Mongrell’s ability to condense the subject matter in such a tightly focused and intensely lived-out moment was due in part to the artist’s own frame of reference. He was from a working background and was highly aware of the toil and hardship of those who earned their living by means of their manual exertions.