Paintings Las Meninas example essay topic

Diego Vel' was called the "noblest and most commanding man among the artists 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 Vel' 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", as demonstrated in the paintings Las Meninas, Sebasti " an de Morra, and Baltasar Carlos and a Dwarf. Las Meninas is a pictorial summary and a commentary on the essential mystery of the visual world, as well as on the ambiguity that results when different states or levels interact or are juxtaposed.

The painting of The Royal Family also known as Las Meninas has always been regarded as an unsurpassable masterpiece. According to Palomino, it 'was finished' in 1656, and, while Vel' was painting it, the King, the Queen, and the Infantas Mar " ia Teresa and Margarita often came to watch him at work. In the painting, the painter himself is seen at the easel; the mirror on the rear wall reflects the half-length figures of Philip IV and Queen Mariana standing under a red curtain. The Infanta Margarita is in the center, attended by two Meninas, or maids of honor, Do~na Isabel de Velasco and Do~na Mar " ia Sarmiento, who curtsy as the latter offers her mistress a drink of water in a b'-a reddish earthen vessel -on a tray. In the right foreground stand a female dwarf, Mari-B'arbela, and a midget, Nicol " as de Pertusato, who playfully puts his foot on the back of the mastiff resting on the floor.

Linked to this large group there is another formed by Do~na Marcela de Ulloa, de las dam as de la Reina - attendant to the ladies-in-waiting-and an unidentified, or escort to the same ladies. In the background, the, or Palace marshal, to the Queen, Don Jos'e Nieto Vel', stands on the steps leading into the room from the lit-up door. Las Meninas has three foci: The figure of the Infanta Margarita is the most luminous; the likeness of the Master himself is another; and the third is provided by the half-length images of the King and the Queen in the mirror on the rear wall. Vel' built the composition on live diagonals, anchoring it, as it were, on the two which intersect at about the spot where the Infanta stands, and encompass at one end the shining mirror and the lit-up doorway and at the other the expanse of light which fans out in the foreground. The interlocking of these luminous areas is the more vivid as the middle distance is cut off by the shadows which spread across the floor. The depth of the chamber is stressed by the alternation of window jambs and picture frames on the right-hand wall, the stretcher of the large canvas on the left foreground, and the perspective sequence of the empty lamp hooks on the ceiling, which mark as central the spot in the rear wall where the King and the Queen are seen reflected in the mirror.

In no other painting has Vel' rendered space in so architectural a manner as in this, the only work in which he has depicted a ceiling. Neither is there any other composition of his that is so vividly keyed to the space lying out of the picture frame. Recent studies of Las Meninas, inspired by the ideas of Michel Foucault, have paid considerable attention to the seemingly novel relationship between the scene on the canvas and the spectator. These ideas tacitly assume that the picture was meant to be seen by the public-at-large, as if it were hanging in an important museum, as it is today. (They also exaggerate the novelty of the way in which the spectator is involved in the picture.) However, the original placement indicates that this is not the case. In 1666, the year after the death of Philip IV, Las Meninas was inventoried in a room known as the "pizza del de vera no", or the office in the summer quarters, in the northern section of the Alc " afar.

The placement of the painting in this setting implies some important information because the pizza del was a room destined for the personal use of the king. Despite its size, Las Meninas was regarded at the time of its creation as a private picture addressed to an audience of one, Philip IV. Others who entered the room could have seen it of course, but only the king had a part in the composition. Comparison of the identifiable paintings seen in Las Meninas with the palace inventory of 1686 has established that Vel' faithfully reproduced the appearance of the gallery as it looked in the 1650's. The first thing to notice is the uniform frames. Payments to carpenters and eyewitness descriptions show that this discreet type of frame, painted either gold or black was used to unify the d'ec or of a given room.

The second point is the clever combination of pictures of diverse sizes. The rear wall contains two large canvases symmetrically disposed, and two smaller paintings to the left and right of each door. On the sidewall, the pictures are accommodated in a three-tier arrangement in which the small canvases are hung progressively higher, culminating in a cornice-like group of Flemish landscape at the top. Las Meninas also represents another feature of the palace - the cavernous, sparsely furnished spaces. The resulting impression of austere chambers decorated with magnificent hangings and pictures was indelible in the minds of visitors to the Alc " afar. The fifty-seven-year-old painter represented himself, in this painting, without a wrinkle on his pensive face, his dark chestnut hair flowing down to his shoulders.

During the last two decades or so, the Vel's elf-portrait has been linked to the two mythological pictures seen dimly in the background of the composition. It has been argued that, since these pictures, Pallas and Arachne and Apollo and Marsyas, 'symbolize the victory of divine art over human craftsmanship, or the victory of true art over un skillfulness', they ought to be taken as 'commentaries which explain the inspired attitude' in which Vel' depicted himself, in 'a moment of suspense', concentrating 'on the inner image' which the sixteenth century mannerisms called di segno inter no as distinct from di segno ester no, the latter being definable as the putting on canvas of the artist's inner image. As has been remarked, this interpretation takes Vel' out of his own age and places him in the Cinquecento. It, moreover, casts a creative painter in the implausible role of a scholiast. In short, Las Meninas was Vel' claim to immortality, a claim based not only on the fact that it was the greatest of paintings, but also, and perhaps principally, on the fact that it showed the artist in the company of the royal princess. As such, the picture epitomized the immutable credence of courtiers that access to the royal family could guarantee nothing less than eternal fame.

Sebasti " an de Morra, as we see it today, is somewhat smaller than it was originally. In the seventeenth-century inventories of the Alc " afar, the dimensions were given as roughly 1.25 x 1.25 meters; they are now reduced to 1.07 x 0.82 meters. These rather substantial loses appear to have occurred when the picture was re framed in an oval format early in the eighteenth century, a procedure which involved first cutting the picture into a smaller square or rectangle and then folding the corners to fit the new frame. Later, the picture was re framed to its present shape. All this cutting, folding, and unfolding have taken their troll on the surface of the picture and disturbed the balance of the composition. An idea of the original is preserved in a somewhat scaled-down copy, which, if faithful, shows that there was once, and earthenware jug in the right-hand corner.

The removal of this lateral strip of canvas centralizes a composition, which Vel' wanted to be slightly out-of-balance. Sebasti " an de Morra is the most forceful of all the dwarf portraits. By setting the figure against a dark, unidentified background, Vel' permits no distractions from the direct confrontation of the viewer and the subject. The bearded dwarf, in a green dress and gold-braided red over garment, is sitting on the floor. The dwarf's petulant temper is rendered by the play of thick light upon shadow, which adds to the distortion and carnality of his features, and by his droll pose; his fore-shortened legs, with the upturned soles of the shoes on his little feet, and the low floor line make his torso look large, and the quite symmetric pull of his short, forceful arms give his chest the appearance of a monumental bust, which conflicts with the diminutive and richly braided over garment which hangs from his shoulders hardly touching the floor where he sits. In the painting, Baltasar Carlos and a dwarf, standing at one side of Baltasar Carlos is a dwarf, presumably one of the companions of the prince, who holds two playthings, an apple and a rattle.

The objects are essential to the significance of the picture. On one level, they can be regarded toys, which are now being removed from the prince by the dwarf, who seems to edge off the scene toward the left-hand corner of the picture. At the moment when the oath was sworn, this child became the heir to the most powerful monarchy in Europe, and thus was no more in need of toys. The parallel shapes of the toys and those symbols of worldly power, the scepter and orb, also suggest the implicit reference to the prince's kingly future.

And perhaps there is also a hint of the difficult choice between pleasure and duty, which would one day face this child, as it did every worldly ruler. Vel' conceptualization of this transcendental event signals a different approach to court portraiture which enriched the traditional repertory of poses and setting by employing a form of allusive, unobtrusive symbolism. Baltasar Carlos and a dwarf is equally rich in form. Like the contemporary portraits of the king and queen, this picture aims to create and effect of splendor thorough colors and textures. The deep reds and crimsons of the drapery and carpet, against which, the little prince sparkles like a diamond, envelop the two diminutive figures. A strong light entering from the left casts an even glow over his shadowless face and reflects brightly off the golden brocade of the costume.

Vel' handling of the embroidery is still somewhat painstaking, although the painting of the carpet is handled with considerable looseness of touch. Standing one step below the prince is the dwarf, apparently a female, wearing a somber-colored dress and white apron. Vel' uses the dwarf as a foil for the prince; the twisting pose emphasizes the rigid verticality of Baltasar Carlos, the shadowed face is played against the smooth complexion of the heir. The contrasting perfection and imperfection of the two little figures almost unavoidably becomes a metaphor of the social and natural order. In these royal portraits, whatever the interpretation Vel' 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.

Through his practice of using pigment in short or long, thin or thick, apparently hasty and spontaneous but actually most skillfully calculated strokes, Vel' was the precursor of the modern practice or direct painting.

Bibliography

Brown, Jonathan. Vel' Painter and Courtier. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986.
Kleiner, Fred S., Mamiya, Christin J., Taney Richard G. Gardner's Art Through the Ages, vol. II. Harcourt college Publishers; San Diego et al. 2001.
Lopez-Rey, Jos'e. Vel' Work and World. Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Society, 1968.