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The Face of Spain
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Enigmas and Reflections
- Riddles in Paint
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Velazquez
Las Meninas - Self-Portrait (detail)
1656-57
Oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Very likely none of these events would have been of any importance
for modern students of his work if they had not, as has often been
assumed, been reflected in the most famous of Velazquez' paintings,
his undisputed masterpiece, described by the Neapolitan painter Luca
Giordano (1634-1705) as the "theology of painting". This was his
monumental work Las Meninas or The Royal Family,
painted in 1656/57.
Las Meninas is one of the great problem pictures in
the history of art. An almost infinite number of interpretations
have now been proposed for the scene it shows, and countless
painters, from the seventeenth century to Francisco de Goya, Edgar
Degas and Edouard Manet, Max Liebermann and Franz von Stuck at a
later date, with Salvador Dalf and Richard Hamilton in modern times,
have felt inspired by this picture to offer their own versions and
studies of it. Most notably, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) vividly
updated the picture in a fifty-eight part series. At
first sight, however, Las Meninas seems to present no
problems at all, and indeed appears perfectly straightforward in its
sober geometry and good-humoured clarity.
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Velazquez
Las Meninas or The Family of Philip IV
1656-57
Oil on canvas, 318 x 276 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
X-rays of this painting have shown that while Velazquez made many
alterations to the composition while he was working on it,
there is
nothing to indicate that he wished to depict himself as if looking
at the Infanta
or anyone else in the group behind which he is
standing.
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It is set in a room in the Alcazar, equipped by Velazquez as a
studio, and shows the heiress to the throne, the Infanta Margarita, with her court. Palomino names all those present. The
queen's maid of honour, Dona Maria Agustina Sarmiento,
one of the meninas, is kneeling at the Infanta's feet,
handing her a jug of water. The other maid of honour, Dona Isabel de
Velasco stands behind the princess, and beside her we
see the grotesquely misshapen female dwarf Mari-Barbola and the male
dwarf Nicolasico Pertusato; the latter, as Palomino points out, is
placing his foot on the mastiff lying in front of the group to
demonstrate the lethargic animal's good temper. Further back, almost
swallowed up in the shadows, are a man described only as
guardadamas - a guard or escort to the ladies -and the lady in
waiting Dona Marcela de Ulloa.
Velazquez is standing with brush and palette in front of a tall
canvas; we can see only the back of it. There are some large
pictures hanging on the back wall of the room. Two of them were
painted by Velazquez' son-in-law, Mazo, from models by Rubens, and
show scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses, one of them another
version of the punishment of Arachne. The princess's parents, the
king and queen, appear in a dark frame below these pictures,
probably the glass of a mirror. To the right of the mirror, on a
flight of steps leading up to a doorway and a brightly lit adjoining
room, stands Jose Nieto, the queen's palace marshal.
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Velazquez
Las Meninas (detail)
1656-57
Oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Miniature
Portraits
(Philip IV of Spain and the Queen)
In the rear mirror, our attention drawn to it by the silhouetted courtier, we see
a reflection of the king and queen. Whether it actually reflects them, or the painting
Velazquez is working on, nobody knows for certain. Secure in their position, the royal
pair can easily afford to become a mere reflection behind their child. Even as pale
shadows, they can dominate, surely the subtlest of compliments.
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Velazquez
Las Meninas (detail)
1656-57
Oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Maria Sarmientio is giving her mistress, the Infanta Margarita,
water in a bucaro, a red pottery jug, handing it to her on a
tray. The children of Philip IV and his first wife Isabel de Bourbon
were dead by the date of this painting, except for the
eighteen-year-old Infanta Maria Teresa, who is not shown in this
group. Philip married Mariana as his second wife in 1649. and at the
time this picture was painted the Infanta Margarita, born on 12 July
1651, was her only child. The little princess's face is shown in an
aura of almost other-worldly beauty such as Velazquez hardly
achieved in any other work.
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Velazquez
Las Meninas (detail)
1656-57
Oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Court
Life
There is a sense of life as actively lived, life held still for a passing moment
- not a moment of special significance, however; merely one of thousands passing every
hour, and this one lives on. The figures of the Infanta's entourage appear and recede in a
vast cave of shadows. All have been identified as historical personages except for the man
standing quietly on the right.
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Jan van Eyck
The Marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini
(detail)
1434
The witnesses to the wedding of the Florentine merchant Arnolfini
appear in the convex mirror on the back wall of the bedroom,
including, as the inscription above the mirror confirms, the painter
of the picture, Jan van Eyck.
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There are several basic questions that have been asked again and
again about this picture. What is Velazquez painting on the front of
the canvas that is hidden from us? Where did he stand in order to
paint the scene and himself in it? What is the source of the image
in the mirror - that is, just where in the room must the royal
couple have been standing for their reflection to appear? And
finally, is there any significance in the fact that the red cross of
the Order of Santiago is prominently applied to the artist's
clothing?
It was long thought that Velazquez - whom the Impressionists claimed
as a forerunner - was creating a picture without any metaphysical or
speculative reference, and was merely recording a fleeting moment in
permanent form, as if in a snapshot. According to this theory the
subject was no more than an ordinary scene of palace life.
Their Majesties were sitting for the painter one day when the
Infanta was called in to entertain them; she and her retinue are
looking at the royal couple, directly visible only to them and to
the painter, but seen half-length in the mirror by viewers of the
picture, while the palace marshal is turning enquiringly back to the
king and queen as he leaves the room.
A different hypothesis is put forward by art historians, who believe
that intellect and keen perspicacity, as well as the artist's eye
and hand, were involved in the painting of Las Meninas.
They have studied the work for possible models, without coming to
any particularly sensational conclusions. It has been possible only
to establish that Velazquez knew the portrait of The Marriage of
Giovanni Amolfini painted by Jan van Eyck (c. 1390-1441) in 1434, which was in Madrid at the time, and may well have
picked up from it the idea of a mirror showing people who are not
depicted in the room.
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Velazquez
Las Meninas (detail)
1656-57
Oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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The question is, why would Velazquez have chosen to give an
intellectualized rendering of his subject? One answer holds that the
picture has a poetic rather than a documentary meaning. Velazquez
has painted a portrait about the painting of a portrait, or as in
Las Hilanderas, he has painted a picture
about the making of pictures, and that is why he has placed himself
in such a prominent position - to glorify his activity, his art, and
himself as an independent creative artist. That is also, according
to this theory, why Luca Giordano saw the composition as the
"theology of painting", the highest form of intellectual or even
philosophical concern with art.
The largest number of interpretations have been put forward for the
mirror on the back wall, sometimes also thought to be a painted
canvas. The theory above holds that the mirror, as a conventional
attribute of Prudentia or Wisdom, indicates the wisdom of the royal
couple and makes the whole picture the expression of elevated
doctrines of virtue: it is a painted "mirror of princes". Velazquez
did not show himself painting King Philip and his wife - double
portraits were not usual in Spanish court painting of the time - but
the royal reflection in the mirror, bathed in light, stands for the
supreme and almost divine virtues of the monarchy. Scholars have
also wondered whether the laws of optics actually allow the royal
couple in front of Velazquez to be reflected - and whether the
dimensions of the canvas on the easel are suitable for a double
portrait. But what else can the painter be depicting on his canvas?
The Infanta? The scene we ourselves see as we look at his picture?
Or nothing at all? Countless investigations and mathematical studies
of the perspective in Las Meninas by architects and
engineers, art historians and theatrical experts, show that the
vanishing-point of the composition is the open doorway in the
background, which would also suggest that the source of the
reflection in the mirror, in line with the laws of optics, is not
directly opposite it but further left. The reflection of the royal
couple in the mirror thus seems to be vanishing out of reach.
Much learned industry has also been applied to the question of
location: in which room in the palace is this scene taking place?
Although the Alcazar burned down in 1734, it has been possible to
locate the site of the room in its historical ground plan. The
reconstruction of the room itself, however, is a matter of
controversy. In view of the nature of the picture, one recurrent
problem is, of course, how a court painter's social position could
allow him to depict himself so prominently in this picture, actually
within the circle of the royal family, while the king and queen
themselves are shown only indirectly.
Palomino says that the king thought particularly highly of Las
Meninas when it was completed, so clearly Philip did not
feel offended in any way by the picture, and indeed he probably gave
the concept his blessing in advance. It is unthinkable that
Velazquez would not have observed the requisite standards of
etiquette in his painting. But there are widely divergent opinions
of the way in which he expressed those standards, and speculations
on the extent to which he may have been secretly undermining them.
The glance that the painter turns on us from this picture certainly
has nothing of the subservient courtier about it. He radiates pride
and self-confidence - and is looking unwaveringly at the person
opposite him, whoever that may be.
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Velazquez
Las Meninas (detail)
1656-57
Oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Velazquez
Las Meninas (detail)
1656-57
Oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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