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Velázquez (or Velásquez), Diego
(1599-1660)
Spain's greatest painter was also one of the supreme painters of all
time. A master of technique, highly individual in style, Diego Velasquez
may have had a greater influence on European art than any other painter.
Diego Rodriguez de Silva Velasquez was born in Seville, Spain,
presumably shortly before his baptism on June 6, 1599. His father was of
noble Portuguese descent. In his teens he studied art with Francisco
Pacheco, whose daughter he married. The young Velasquez once declared,
"I would rather be the first painter of common things than second in
higher art." He learned much from studying nature. After his marriage at
the age of 19, Velasquez went to Madrid. When he was 24 he painted a
portrait of Philip IV, who became his patron.
The painter made two visits to Italy. On his first, in 1629, he copied
masterpieces in Venice and Rome. He returned to Italy 20 years later and
bought many paintings--by Titian, Tintoretto, and Paolo
Veronese--and statuary for the
king's collection.
Except for these journeys Velasquez lived in Madrid as court painter.
His paintings include landscapes, mythological and religious subjects,
and scenes from common life, called genre pictures. Most of them,
however, are portraits of court notables that rank with the portraits
painted by Titian and Anthony Van Dyck.
Duties of Velasquez' royal offices also occupied his time. He was
eventually made marshal of the royal household, and as such he was
responsible for the royal quarters and for planning ceremonies.
In 1660 Velasquez had charge of his last and greatest ceremony--the
wedding of the Infanta Maria Theresa to Louis XIV of France. This was a
most elaborate affair. Worn out from these labors, Velasquez contracted
a fever from which he died on August 6.
Velasquez was called the "noblest and most commanding man among the
painters of his country." He was a master realist, and no painter has
surpassed him in the ability to seize essential features and fix them on
canvas with a few broad, sure strokes. "His men and women seem to
breathe," it has been said; "his horses are full of action and his dogs
of life."
Because of Velasquez' great skill in merging color, light, space, rhythm
of line, and mass in such a way that all have equal value, he was known
as "the painter's painter." Ever since he taught Bartolomé Murillo, Velasquez has directly or indirectly
led painters to make original contributions to the development of art.
Others who have been noticeably influenced by him are Francisco de Goya, Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet, and James McNeill Whistler. His famous
paintings include The Surrender of Breda, an equestrian portrait of
Philip IV, The Spinners, The Maids of Honor, Pope Innocent X, Christ at
Emmaus, and a portrait of the Infanta Maria Theresa.
As court painter to Philip IV, Velazquez spent a large part of his life
recording, in his cool, detached way, the objective appearance of this
rigidly conventional royal household, with little interpretation but
with the keenest eye for selecting what was important for pictoral
expression and with a control of paint to secure exactly the desired
effect. Through acquaintance, while in Italy, with the work of Caravaggio and through contact with
the Spaniard Jusepe de Ribera (1588-1656), he learned something of the
potentialities of a very limited palette, black and neutrals, as is
evident in many of his portraits, which are subtle harmonies of grays
and blacks.
In painting these royal portraits, whatever interpretation he made or
whatever emotional reaction he experienced he kept to himself. Royalty,
courtliness of the most rigid character was his task to portray, not
individual personality. However, the portrait of Innocent X leads on to
suspect that there might have been more interpretation had the painter
been free to express it.
Through his practice of using pigment as it is used in Maids of Honor,
and Innocent X, in short or long, thin or thick, apparently hasty and
spontaneous but actually most skillfully calculated strokes, Velasquez
was a forerunner of the modern practice or direct painting.
View artworks’ titles of oil painting old master Velázquez Diego
Rodriguez de Silva Spain 1599-1660
0 The Surrender of Breda
0 View of Zaragoza
4 Buffoon Barbarroja
4 Christ on the Cross
4 Court Dwarf Don Antonio el Ingles
4 A Dwarf Holding a Tome in His Lap aka Don Diego de Acedo el Primo
4 A Dwarf Sitting on the Floor
4 A Knight of the Order of Santiago supply oil painting Velázquez
Diego Rodriguez de Silva
4 A Sibyl
4 A Young Lady
4 Aesop EUR
4 Archne A Sybil
4 Camillo Massimi |
