Diego Velázquez

Born: 1599

Died: 1660

Summary of Diego Velázquez

Although Diego Velázquez’s principal role during the Baroque period was as a famous court painter for Spain’s King Philip IV, he is most known for pushing the boundaries of portraiture and scene painting. His distinctive naturalistic approach, a forerunner to realism, valued authenticity above romanticism and set him apart from others of his day who stuck to traditional and historical methods of presenting their topics. He managed to create a fiercely individualistic and impressive body of work that belied his underlying passion for the human being and human experience. Vastly personable, and equally interested in the common man as the lauded man, he managed to create a fiercely individualistic and impressive body of work that belied his underlying passion for the human being and human experience.

Despite the fact that he was paid to paint for royalty, Velazquez retained a strong dedication to depicting common people and scenes. By making pieces that were so captivating that they could not be ignored, he was able to overcome the external pressures of public opinion, which judged this effort useless or pointless.

Velazquez’s photorealistic and well ahead of his time manner of painting reality was incredibly direct. He employed a variety of approaches to effectively represent detail and its numerous subtleties, including free, loose brushstrokes, the use of light, colour, and form gradients, and an unequalled eye for detail among his contemporaries. Both Realism and Impressionism would be influenced by this style.

Velazquez was a master of chiaroscuro, or the use of light and shadow to produce strong contrast in a painting. He used this approach to draw attention to important details for the spectator and to create an overall atmospheric viewpoint.

Velazquez used composition as a strategy to encourage viewers to experience his work in the way he intended. To do this, he frequently employed diagonal structures, complicated focal points, and distinct planes to direct the viewer’s attention to the most essential elements of the picture or to elicit a better knowledge of it.

Las Meninas (The Ladies in Waiting) by Velazquez has become one of the most studied works in Western art. He remarked not only on the position of the painter as one who is allowed to glimpse moments of intimacy that viewers would not ordinarily be privy to, but also on the artist’s signature tools and techniques of the trade, by placing a rendition of himself as artist into an intensely private scene with his royal subjects. It’s a fantastic example of the painter’s importance.

Childhood

Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez was the first of Juan Rodriguez and Jeronima Velazquez’s six children born in Seville, Spain. His parents provided him with excellent religious, linguistic, and philosophical education. When his copybooks transformed into sketchbooks, his father recognised his son’s early potential in drawing and arranged for Velazquez to study under Francisco de Herrera the Elder. The great painter was credited with inventing the Spanish national style.

Velazquez began studying under Francisco Pacheco, a well-known Spanish painter, when he was 12 years old. Pacheco taught him technical drawing and painting, as well as literature and philosophy. Pacheco was a painter, poet, biographer, and art theorist, according to his biographer Karl Justi, whose “…studio was a formal academy of the most cultured Sevillians and strangers…” Pacheco also had powerful connections in the Spanish royal court, which were extremely valuable to his students, many of whom aspired to be court artists.

Painters’ skills were most commonly used at the period to represent events from important religious and historical narratives, as well as to make portraits for royal and rich customers. Velazquez was drawn to portray various sorts of individuals and settings even as a young painter. He was chastised for his works depicting ordinary people performing domestic duties. However, Pacheco quotes Velazquez as stating, “The Art of Painting” in his 1649 book Arte de la pintura (“…I would rather be first painter of coarse things than second in higher art…”). Velazquez’s decency, honesty, temperament, and talent finally captivated Pacheco, and he admired him.”

Early Life

Velazquez established his own studio and married Pacheco’s daughter, Juana, after being admitted into the Painter’s Guild of St. Luke in 1617 at the age of 18. Velazquez had cemented his place and renown in Seville by the early 1620s. He began a family and continued to paint historical sceneries, portraits, mythical, and holy subjects while raising his children.

The King’s favourite court painter, Count-Duke of Olivares, died in December 1622, and the King’s minister, Count-Duke of Olivares, called Velazquez to fill the vacancy. Velazquez was paid to relocate his family to Madrid within two years, and he lived there for the remainder of his life. His life and career were amply supported once he was accepted to the royal service with a monthly income, medical perks, accommodation, and payment for all assigned paintings.

Many of Seville’s greatest intellectuals, painters, poets, and scholars met at Velazquez’s workplace on a daily basis. Master artists such as Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and Caravaggio, as well as art philosophy, were frequently discussed. As Laura Cumming recounts in The Vanishing Velazquez – A 19th Century Bookseller’s Obsession With A Lost Masterpiece, Velazquez was a prominent figure in this booming creative area. “Velazquez made connections everywhere he went with fellow painters, and he never forgot a friend; the visual proof appears in the course of a lifetime’s portraits.” she writes.

Despite being strongly rooted in Baroque tradition, Velazquez’s work displayed points of departure that would eventually distinguish him from the other court painters of the period and place him among the fiercely autonomous artists. Instead of the usual glamorization of his subjects, he painted with a keen interest in naturalism – a clear and exact realism that, two centuries later, following the invention of photography, might be considered photorealistic.

He created his own nature and artistic ideas to depict people and situations as they were, but he also utilised compositional methods to draw the viewer’s attention to areas of the work that he wanted to emphasise. To create mood, he would switch between loose and tight freestyle brushstrokes. He had a knack for maximising the way a human eye produced a visible world and would experience a canvas by combining attributes of oil point, light and dark effects, and colour. In his final work, he rarely utilised lines; instead, he used patches of colour and contrasts between highlight and shadow to define his shapes.

Mid Life

In 1627, King Philip III of Spain established a competition for the best Spanish painters. The historical expulsion of the Moors was chosen as the theme of the artworks. Although Velázquez was victorious, his picture was lost in a palace fire in 1734. However, documented accounts describe a scenario in which Philip III points his baton at a multitude of people being taken away by soldiers, while Hispania, the feminine embodiment of Spain, rests in serene repose. As a reward, Velázquez was named gentleman usher, with a daily stipend and an extra salary for attire each year.

In 1628, he was visited by Rubens, an older, well-known Flemish Baroque artist who had spent six months at the palace in Madrid. During this time, Velázquez and Rubens conversed and collaborated, and they formed a strong mutual regard for one another. Velazquez was encouraged by Rubens to travel to Italy, where he felt true art started.

King Philip IV granted Velázquez permission to visit Italy for the first time in 1629. He travelled to Genoa and Venice to see Titian’s art, which he had loved since his apprenticeship in Seville and whose effect on his work was overwhelming. He also went to Florence and Rome, where he was able to examine the works of numerous masters. He stayed in Rome for over a year, copying master paintings while also working on his own canvases.

Velázquez returned to Madrid and continued to work for the Spanish Court. He was engaged on the decoration of the Buen Retiro mansion around 1634. Velazquez depicted the ceremonial handing over of the keys to the castle of Breda in his painting. That picture has been hailed as a masterwork of history, maybe the greatest in Western Europe.

Late Life

Velázquez returned to Rome in 1649, when he painted his renowned portrait of “Pope Innocent X” as well as a number of other works. Velázquez was ordered by King Philip IV to return to Spain, which he did in 1651 through Barcelona, bringing several paintings and statues with him. “…the ten or so Roman portraits must show the influence of Italian painting, the fluent manner of Bernini, and of Titian before him…Rome was his freedom…” writes Laura Cumming.

When King Philip IV returned to Madrid, he appointed Velazquez Supreme Court Marshal, allowing him to develop his art workshop. He also hired a large number of helpers and students, many of whom were not of the same creative level. After the death of his first wife, King Philip married Mariana of Austria, whom Velázquez depicted in several versions. Rather than suggesting a deterioration as a result of these responsibilities, his works from this time period are among the best examples of his style.

Velazquez’s last major work, Las Meninas, was a group portrait of the Spanish Royal Family (1656). Velázquez died in August 1660 in Madrid, at the mansion where he spent so much of his time.

Velazquez’s art was rarely recognised outside of Spain until the 19th century. Sir David Wilkie, a Scottish artist, wrote from Madrid in 1828 that Velazquez was a new presence and strength in art. He also detected a link between Velazquez and the British portrait school, particularly Sir Henry Raeburn. In both portraits and landscape painting, he admired Velázquez’s contemporary perceptions.

Famous Art by Diego Velázquez

Vieja friendo huevos (Old Woman Frying Eggs)

1618

Velazquez produced this work at the age of eighteen in the manner of a Spanish bodegone, or miniature genre scene depicting ordinary people in a familiar scenario, often including food and lunchtime gatherings. It’s recognised for its unapologetically naturalistic approach. Velazquez meticulously rendered the numerous subtle shifts in skin tones, the elegant folds of soft fabric in the elderly woman’s shawl, the shine and tiny shadows of metal in the pots, and the rich sheen of the red onion’s skin in this painting. The meal, the saucepan of boiling eggs, and the woman’s hand above it form the composition’s focal point.

The Surrender of Breda

1635

Velázquez kept working for the Spanish Court after he returned to Madrid from Italy. By 1634, he had begun work on the decorations for the palace of Buen Retiro. One of these works was The Surrender of Breda, which was intended for exhibition in Philip IV’s royal room. The enormous picture, which measured around ten by twelve feet, was part of a series of twelve war scenes, each created by a different artist.

Las Meninas

1656

The Maids of Honor, or Las Meninas, is regarded one of Velazquez’s most famous works, reflecting the culmination of a lifetime of creativity, intelligence, and technical perfection. It is also regarded as a foundational example of the art of painting by artists and audiences alike, even 300 years later. The intricate and enigmatic work piqued the interest of everybody who saw it, and it has been compared to a résumé of Velazquez’s whole life and career.

BULLET POINTED (SUMMARISED)

Best for Students and a Huge Time Saver

• Although Diego Velázquez’s principal role during the Baroque period was as a famous court painter for Spain’s King Philip IV, he is most known for pushing the boundaries of portraiture and scene painting.
• His distinctive naturalistic approach, a forerunner to realism, valued authenticity above romanticism and set him apart from others of his day who stuck to traditional and historical methods of presenting their topics.
• He managed to create a fiercely individualistic and impressive body of work that belied his underlying passion for the human being and human experience.
• Vastly personable, and equally interested in the common man as the lauded man, he managed to create a fiercely individualistic and impressive body of work that belied his underlying passion for the human being and human experience.
• Despite the fact that he was paid to paint for royalty, Velazquez retained a strong dedication to depicting common people and scenes.
• By making pieces that were so captivating that they could not be ignored, he was able to overcome the external pressures of public opinion, which judged this effort useless or pointless.
• Velazquez’s photorealistic and well ahead of his time manner of painting reality was incredibly direct.
• Both Realism and Impressionism would be influenced by this style.
• Velazquez used composition as a strategy to encourage viewers to experience his work in the way he intended.
• He remarked not only on the position of the painter as one who is allowed to glimpse moments of intimacy that viewers would not ordinarily be privy to, but also on the artist’s signature tools and techniques of the trade, by placing a rendition of himself as artist into an intensely private scene with his royal subjects.

Information Citations

En.wikipedia.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/.

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