Light, Reflection, Illumination

Although expressions such as “shed some light ” or “I saw the light ” figure often in our everyday speech, we do not typically contemplate light. We may marvel at its seemingly mysterious expression through auroras, rain-bows, lasers, or celestial objects or find comfort in its sub-tler forms such as sunbeams, candles, campfires, or fireflies. Artists and scientists, by contrast, do study and manipulate light, reflection, and illumination. Impressionistic painters strive to capture an impres-sion of a fleeting moment, a particular scene. Many among their numbers are considered masters for their skill at cap-turing light as it shimmers across surfaces. Claude Monet once described Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida Sorolla as “the painter of light above all other.” Sorolla, was born in Valencia, Spain, in 1863. He and his infant sister Concha were orphaned when their parents died during a cholera epidemic 2 years later, and they were raised by their mother’s relatives. Early on, Sorolla seemed destined to become an artist: “When Joaquin was of an age to go to school, he manifested little inclination for his studie