Velazquez Painting example essay topic

EXTERNAL HISTORY: . Considered along with LAS MENIN AS to be one of the most important masterpieces of DIEGO DE VELAZQUEZ, as if final peri do, this scene despite Minerra's dispute with Arachne over weaving abilities. Traditionally considered to represent women working at the tapestry workshop of Santa Is able but it now proved that it is mythological subject. It was probably painted around 1657. The title of 'THE SPINNERS', as it is popularly known, is a later invention and seems to have been inspired by the women who are spinning in the foreground they were workers in the Santa Isabel tapestry factory in Madrid. This Velazquez painting, considered for a long represent a generic theme, actually hides the depiction of a mythological theme draped in the everyday labour of a taps try workshop.

In the mid forties, refused to internet it as a simple every day seen. Their doubt were clarified when researcher Maria Luisa Caturla brought to light an inventory in which an Velazquez " fable of Arachne was mentioned, owned by huntsman to King Philip 4th, Don Pedro de A rcc. One of the problems that hindi red the identification of the subject lay in the fact that the work did not belong to collections and documentary information existed about it. INTERNAL HISTORY: The Fable of Arch a, as related in Ovid's Metamorphose, tells how Minerva, goddess of the arts and of war, competes with Arachne, famous for her skill in spinning in weaving a tapestry.

The young spinner was insolent enough to prevent in her work one of the love adventures of the goddess father Jove, and by way of punishment, she was transformed into a spider. ICONOGRAPHY: Even so, Velazquez had used Baroque recourse of inserting a picture within a picture since he was a young man, and he linked to reverse the order of important of the story (i.e. putting the trivial forward and the fundamental behind) This canvas was added onto it in the 18th century, on the upper part and both sides. It is not know if this as done to restore it to its original state (it was thought to have suffered damage in the Alcazar fire of 1734) or if it was simply and attempt to complete the scene to make it larger. Certain scholar say it is an Apology of fine arts, intended to show the superiority of the art of painting over the hand crafts, while others see it a Political Allegory after Ripa's Iconology. TECHNIQUE: The Spinning wheels turns rapidly showing the loose Velazquez technique.

The canvas was probable damaged by the fire in the Alcazar (1734) and an upper section was added. An 'can be appreciated in the head of the girl in profile, represented in the right side of the painting. As a god des of war, appears in the background in military dress. It is at the back of the work shop where the fable is recounted; in the foreground we see the actual labour of the workshop. Both space are graced with the magnificent and the meticulous use of light and a freedom and loosen of brush strokes that make the painting one of the most value able of those predating Impressionism. The key painting by means of the mythological story, by a tapestry with the Rape of Europe, by Titian painting as a declaration of superiority of art over mere manual dexterity.

It has been in the Prado since 1819.