Court of the Dances, Alcázar, Sevilla, 1910

A shaded passage opens onto a bright inner patio, its stone walls thick with climbing ivy that softens every edge of the architecture. Beyond the greenery, sunlight pools on the courtyard ground, drawing the eye from the cool, dim foreground toward the warm glow of the open space beyond, a scene set within the Alcazar palace in Seville. The oil painting dates to 1910 and is held today at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Its painter, Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida, was a Spanish artist who lived from 1863 to 1923. Worth noticing is the contrast between the tangled, shadowed foliage close at hand and the clear, radiant light that fills the distant patio, a quiet passage from darkness into brightness that gives the whole courtyard a sense of depth and air.