History Museum - Ciudad Juarez, Mexico - Velázquez Exhibit
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660) became the Monarch’s Court Painter for Spanish King Philip IV at the young age of 24. He later became friends with Peter Paul Rubens, the great Flemish painter. He studied the work of Michelangelo and other masters on extended trips to Italy, but most of his life was spent in Madrid painting portraits of Philip IV and his family and court. The art of Valázquez was a great influence upon Francisco Goya. Some have called the painting shown here his masterpiece.
As a court painter, Velázquez had an incredible talent to seize upon daily scenes from royal life and capture their essential features on canvas with seemingly little effort. It has been said that his figures seem to actually breath and that “even the dogs he paints” have life. It’s certainly true in this work, painted in 1656-57, called “Las Meninas (Maids of Honor)”.
The figure of the artist in the left side of the painting is a self-portrait, and the two figures in the mirror behind him are the king and queen, who are the actual subjects for the sitting in this scene. So, in Las Meninas we see what they see, the painter standing in front of them in his studio having been interrupted by a visit by their daughter the Infanta Margarita accompanied by her maids of honor, one whom is serving her as the other curtsies to the king and queen. So the painting is not merely a technical feat but extraordinarily clever in its inception.
|
