Diego Velázquez, the greatest painter of Baroque.
17, Las Meninas.
Las Meninas (Spanish for ‘The Maids of Honour’) was produced in 1656 and is regarded by many
as Velázquez’ masterpiece, forming a complex and enigmatic composition.
It displays a large room in the Royal Alcázar of Madrid, revealing several figures, most
identifiable from the Spanish court, seemingly caught in a single moment of unmediated pause.
Some figures look out of the canvas towards the viewer, while others interact with each
other.
Philip IV’s first wife, Elizabeth of France, had died in 1644 and their only son, Balthasar
Charles, had died two years later.
Lacking an heir, Philip married Mariana of Austria in 1649.
Two years later she gave birth to Margaret Theresa, their first child and their only
one at the time of the painting.
Velázquez painted several portraits of Mariana and her children and although Philip himself
resisted being portrayed in his old age, he did allow Velázquez to include him in Las
Meninas.
In the early 1650’s he gave Velázquez the Pieza Principal (main room) of the late Balthasar
Charles’s living quarters, by then serving as the palace museum, to use as his studio.
It is here that the famous painting is set.
Philip had his own chair in the studio and would often sit and watch Velázquez at work.
Although constrained by rigid etiquette, the art-loving king seems to have had a genuinely
close relationship with the artist.
After Velázquez’ death, he wrote “I am crushed” in the margin of a memorandum on
the choice of his successor.
In the composition, the young Infanta Margaret Theresa is surrounded by her entourage of
maids of honour, chaperone, bodyguard, two dwarfs and an accompanying dog.
One of the dwarfs playfully kicks at the dog, adding a sense of mischievousness to the scene.
Meanwhile, Velázquez portrays himself working at a large canvas behind them.
The artist peers outwards, beyond the pictorial space to where we, the viewer of the painting,
would stand.
In the background there is a mirror that reflects the upper bodies of the king and queen.
They appear to be placed outside the picture space in a position similar to that of the
viewer, although some scholars have speculated that their image is a reflection from the
painting Velázquez is working on.
All in all, the image is a provoking commentary on the divide between reality (where we and
the king and queen are standing) and representation, where the members of the family and attendants
are portrayed.
In the history of art, it is rare for a painter to possess the confidence and originality
to include himself in a portrait of a Royal patron, but in Las Meninas Velázquez has
by all accounts achieved this difficult feat.
The painting has been cut down on both the left and right sides.
It was damaged in the fire that destroyed the Alcázar in 1734, and was restored by
the court painter Juan García de Miranda (1677–1749).
The left cheek of the Infanta was almost completely repainted to compensate for a substantial
loss of pigment.
After its rescue from the fire, the painting was inventoried as part of the Royal Collection
in 1747–48, and the Infanta was misidentified as Maria Theresa, Margaret Theresa’s older
half-sister, an error that was repeated when the painting was inventoried at the new Madrid
Royal Palace in 1772.
The 1794 inventory reverted to a version of the earlier title, The Family of Philip IV,
which was repeated in the records of 1814.
The painting entered the collection of the Museo del Prado on its foundation in 1819.
In 1843, the Prado catalogue listed the work for the first time as Las Meninas.
In recent years, the picture has suffered a loss of texture and hue.
Due to exposure to pollution and crowds of visitors, the formerly vivid contrasts between
blue and white pigments in the costumes of the female attendants have faded.
The painting was last cleaned in 1984 under the supervision of the American conservator
John Brealey, to remove a “yellow veil” of dust that had gathered since the previous
restoration in the nineteenth century.
The cleaning provoked, according to the art historian Federico Zeri, “furious protests,
not because the picture had been damaged in any way, but because it looked different”.
However, in the opinion of López-Rey, the “restoration was impeccable”.
Due to its size, importance and immense national value, Las Meninas is never lent out for exhibition.
18, Las Hilanderas.
The late work Las Hilanderas (The Spinners) concerns The Fable of Arachne, narrated by
the Roman poet Ovid in The Metamorphoses.
According to the myth, the mortal Arachne dared to challenge the goddess Athena to a
weaving competition and, on winning the contest, was turned into a spider by the jealous goddess.
In earlier years, the painting was believed to be a portrayal of women workers in the
tapestry workshop of Santa Isabel.
However, in 1948 Diego Angula observed that the iconography suggested Ovid’s fable and
this identification is now generally accepted to be the correct one.
The canvas was commissioned by Don Pedro de Arce, a huntsman to King Philip IV.
Las Hilanderas entered the royal collection in the eighteenth century and was most likely
damaged by the fire at the Alcázar in 1734.
New sections were added at the sides and the top of the canvas shortly after.
The painting remains at the extended size, but is currently displayed behind a screen
with a frame added over a cut-away section revealing only the original dimensions.
Stylistic elements, such as the lightness, the economical use of paint and the clear
influence of the Italian Baroque, have led many scholars to argue that Las Hilanderas
was painted in 1657.
Others place it earlier, at some time from 1644–50, as certain aspects of its form
and content recall the bodegones genre pieces that Velázquez painted in his early career.
The painting presents a layered composition, which Velázquez had often used in his earlier
bodegones, such as his Kitchen Scene with Christ in the House of Martha and Mary.
In the foreground of the image we have the portrayal of the contest, with the goddess
Athena, disguised as an old woman on the left and Arachne, in a white bodice facing away
from the viewer, on the right, while three helpers attend them in their work.
In the background, on a raised platform, we can glimpse the finished tapestries.
The visible tapestry is Arachne’s creation, chronicling The Rape of Europa, which is in
fact a copy of Titian’s painting of the subject, which was held in the Spanish royal
collection.
The painting has been interpreted as an allegory of the arts and even as a commentary on the
range of creative endeavour, with the fine arts represented by the goddess and the crafts
represented by Arachne.
Other art critics suggest that Velázquez’ message concerned the importance of hard technical
work in the pursuit of innovative creativity.
19, Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress.
Margaret Theresa of Spain (1651-1673) was Holy Roman Empress, German Queen, Archduchess
consort of Austria, Queen consort of Hungary and Bohemia.
She was the daughter of King Philip IV of Spain and his second wife Mariana of Austria,
and the elder sister of Charles II, the last of the Spanish Habsburgs.
For political reasons, Margaret Theresa was betrothed as a child to her maternal uncle
and paternal cousin, Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor.
Her father stipulated that she should maintain her position in the line of succession to
the Spanish throne and would pass her succession rights to her descendants, which Leopold I
gladly accepted.
She was the central figure in Velázquez’ famous Las Meninas and would become the subject
of many of his later paintings.
These paintings show her in different stages of her childhood and were sent to Vienna to
inform Leopold of what his young fiancée currently looked like.
Housed in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress was
one of Velázquez’ last paintings, completed in 1659, a year before his death.
In the portrait the artist employs the technique of loose brushstrokes that fuse into coherence
only when viewed from a certain distance.
The Infanta, here eight years old, is portrayed with a solemn expression.
She wears a blue silk dress, adorned with silver borders after the Spanish fashion of the era.
The painting’s most striking characteristic is the huge expanse of the voluminous crinoline,
accentuated by the trimmed borders and the wide lace collar.
In one of her hands, Margaret Theresa holds a brown fur muff, perhaps indicating a gift
from Vienna.
She is presented as pretty and appealing, with a pale countenance enhanced by the blue
and silver tones.
Velázquez’ final portraits of the royal children are among his finest works and in
the Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress his painterly skills in portraiture reached
new heights, as shimmering spots of colour on wide surfaces evoke an almost impressionistic
effect, creating a three-dimensional spatiality.