Diego Velázquez (artist)

I

Introduction

Diego Velázquez (artist) (1599-1660), Spanish baroque artist (see Baroque Art and Architecture), who, with Francisco de Goya and El Greco, forms the great triumvirate of Spanish painting.

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was born in Seville, the oldest of six children. Both his parents were from the lesser nobility. Between 1611 and 1617 Velázquez worked as an apprentice to Francisco Pacheco, a Sevillian mannerist painter (see Mannerism) who was also the author of an important treatise, El arte de la pintura (The Art of Painting, 1649), and who became Velázquez's father-in-law. During his student years Velázquez absorbed the most popular contemporary styles of painting, derived, in part, from both Flemish and Italian realism.

II

Youthful Works

Many of the earliest paintings by Velázquez show a strong naturalist bias, as does The Meal (1617?, Hermitage, Saint Petersburg), which may have been his first work as an independent master after passing the examination for the Guild of Saint Luke. This painting belongs to the first of three categories—the bodegón (kitchen piece), along with portraits and religious scenes—into which his youthful works, executed between about 1617 and 1623, may be placed. In his kitchen pieces, a few figures are combined with studied still-life objects (see Still Life), as in Water Seller of Seville (1619?-1620?, Wellington Museum, London). In these works, Velázquez's direct representation of nature and masterly effects of light and shadow make inevitable a comparison with the work of Italian painter Caravaggio. Velázquez's religious paintings, images of simple piety, portray models drawn from the streets of Seville, as Pacheco states in his biography of the artist. In Adoration of the Magi (1619, Prado, Madrid), for example, Velázquez painted his own family in the guise of biblical figures, including a self-portrait as well.

Velázquez was well acquainted with members of the intellectual circles of Seville. Pacheco was the director of an informal humanist academy, at the meetings of which the young artist was introduced to such luminaries as poet Luis de Góngora y Argote, whose portrait he executed in 1622 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). Such contact was important for Velázquez's later work on mythological and classical subjects.

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III

Appointment as Court Painter

In 1622 Velázquez made his first trip to Madrid, ostensibly, according to Pacheco's biography, to see the royal painting collections, but more likely in an unsuccessful search for a position as court painter. In 1623, however, he returned to the capital and, after executing a portrait (1623, Prado) of the king, was named official painter to Philip IV. The portrait was the first among many such sober, direct renditions of the king, the royal family, and members of the court. Indeed, throughout the later 1620s, most of Velázquez's efforts were dedicated to portraiture. Mythological subjects would at times occupy his attention, as in Bacchus, also called The Drinkers (1628-1629, Prado). This scene of revelry in an open field, picturing the god of wine drinking with a group of tough-looking men, testifies to the artist's continued interest in realism.

IV

Trip to Italy

In 1628 Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens came to the court at Madrid on a diplomatic mission, and Velázquez was one of the few painters with whom he associated. Although Rubens did not have a direct impact on the style of the younger painter, their conversations almost certainly inspired Velázquez to visit the art collections in Italy that were so much admired by his fellow artist. In August 1629 Velázquez departed from Barcelona for Genoa and spent most of the next two years traveling in Italy. From Genoa he proceeded to Milan, Venice, Florence, and Rome, returning to Spain from Naples in January 1631. In the course of his journey he closely studied both the art of the Renaissance and contemporary painting. Several of the works he executed during his travels attest to his assimilation of these styles. A notable example is Joseph and His Brothers (1630, El Escorial, near Madrid), which combines a Michelangelesque sculptural quality (see Michelangelo) with the chiaroscuro (light-and-shadow techniques) of such Italian masters as Guercino and Giovanni Lanfranco.

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