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The Face of Spain
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From Kitchen to Palace
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No one thought it beneath the young Velazquez to concern himself
with such "low" themes. On the contrary: Francisco Pacheco cited the
example of the classical artist Piraikos, who bore the nickname "Rhyparographos"
because he painted similarly ordinary subjects, saying that in
reviving his artistic world Velazquez had achieved an exact
imitation of nature, which was the basis of all good art. Such an
attitude to the subject in Spain also made it easy for artists to
merge the bodegon with more "elevated" pictorial genres:
religious stories or mythological scenes.
Velazquez united different stylistic genres in this way for the
first time in 1618, with Christ in the House of Martha and
Mary. The foreground depicts an interior with
the large, half-length figures of two women, one old and one young;
the younger is working with a mortar set on the table in front of
her. Garlic, fish, eggs, seasonings and a jug form a still life
emphasized, like the faces of the women, by the light falling on it.
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Velazquez
Christ in the House of Mary and Marthe
c. 1620
Oil on canvas, 60 x 103,5 cm
National Gallery, London
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Velazquez
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (detail)
c. 1620
Oil on canvas
National Gallery, London
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Velazquez
The Supper at Emmaus
c. 1620
Oil on canvas, 123.2 x 132.7 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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It remains curiously uncertain whether the religious scene on the
right in the background, from which the work takes its title, is a
picture, or a reflection, or seen through an open hatch in the back
wall of the room in the foreground. But in any case the artist is
playing with levels of reality, with "pictures within a picture"
reflecting and commenting on each other, questioning the interplay
of their statements - a device that Velazquez was to employ again in
his late masterpiece, the Meninas, where he refined it
to the utmost.
The sublimity of the main religious subject of Christ with the two
sisters in Bethany is banished to a small area in the background,
while the down-to-earth subsidiary theme of the kitchen scene
occupies the foreground. Velazquez is not setting out to tell a
Biblical story, but to establish connections between the religious
parable and the everyday life of his own time: the food on the table
is obviously part of a Lenten meal being prepared by the young
maidservant, while the old woman's pointing hand is telling the girl
that - as the Biblical scene behind them states - industry and work
(the vita activa) are not enough in themselves for true
piety, which also requires serious contemplation and the strength of
faith (the vita contemplativa).
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Velazquez
The Adoration of the Magi
1619
Oil on canvas, 203 x 125 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
The main characters are thought to be portraits: the young king is a
free self-portrait of the artist, while the kneeling king behind him
has the features of Pacheco and the Virgin Mary those of Pacheco's
daughter Juana, married to Velazquez.
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But in The Adoration of the Magi, probably
painted in 1619 for the Noviciate of the Jesuits of San Luis in
Seville, Velazquez moves completely away from the approach of the
bodegones. Although striking chiaroscuro contrasts still
predominate, and secular elements mingle with the sacred atmosphere,
the focal point of the picture is the radiantly idealized
presentation of the Madonna and Child. The composition is
traditional, although Velazquez rejects the artificial affectation
of earlier Spanish paintings of this particular subject. He conveys
dignified calm in a lofty and spiritual pictorial concept.
No doubt Pacheco, who advised the Inquisition on artistic matters in
1619, will have encouraged his pupil and son-in-law to immerse
himself in religious subjects. Velazquez painted a whole series of
altarpieces and devotional pictures in Seville, and even later he
did not neglect sacred painting entirely, but it was never to be at
the centre of his artistic activity. That place was reserved for the
portrait.
Even in Seville, where he was accepted into the painters' guild of
St. Luke before he was eighteen and then, in 1620, opened a workshop
and employed apprentices himself, he was already embarking on
portraiture, a path that would lead him to a place among the major
portraitists in the history of art. There are around half a dozen
portraits extant of very different people from Velazquez' early
period in Seville, including two sensitive drawings vibrant with
life, both showing a young girl and dated to 1618.
Since very few of the artist's authentic drawings have survived,
these two are particularly worthy of notice.
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Velazquez
Head of a Girl
c. 1618
Chalk drawing, 150 x 117 mm
Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid
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Velazquez
The Immaculate Conception
c. 1618
Oil on canvas, 135 x 102 cm
National Gallery, London
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One of his series of unforgettable portraits showing great
psychological acuity, and among the few works to be dated and signed
by the young artist, is Mother Jeronima de la Fuente,
of 1620. The picture must have been painted before 1
June that year, when the Franciscan nun it depicts took ship for the
Philippines to found the convent of Santa Clara in Manila. The
elderly nun's gaze is keen and slightly melancholic, as if prepared
for any sacrifice. She holds a large crucifix in her right hand and
a book in her left hand.
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Velazquez
Abbess Jeronima de la Fuente
1620
Oil on canvas, 162 x 107,5 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Velazquez took up ideas from earlier models that struck him as
important and worth studying. In religious compositions such as the
painting St. Ildefonso Receiving the Chasuble from the Virgin
(probably painted about 1620), the spiritual ascetics
portrayed by El Greco (1541-1614) may well have been such models.
With remarkable self-confidence, however, Velazquez always
transformed the ideas he adopted into his own inimitable style. Its
increasing artistic delicacy, his sure touch in exploring the depths
of his subject, and a fine sense of composition show the presence of
genius beneath the surface of the young artist still learning his
craft.
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El Greco
St Paul
1608-14
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Velazquez
St Ildefonso Receiving the Chasuble from the Virgin
c. 1620
Oil on canvas, 166 x 120 cm
Museo de Bellas Artes, Seville
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At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Spanish court was
still based in Valladolid. Around 1620 it moved to Madrid, and in
1622 Velazquez went there for the first time. He wanted to get a
footing in the city, the centre of power and a place where he might
hope to find distinguished patrons. Pacheco's connections with
courtiers, and the Sevillian origin of the Count of Olivares (to
whom Philip IV, who was only seventeen years old, had entrusted the
business of state on coming to the throne), must have been conducive
to the success of this venture, and indeed success quickly followed.
After the death of Rodrigo de Villandrando, the king's favourite
among the four court painters of the time, Velazquez received a
summons to court from the Count of Olivares in the spring of 1623.
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Velazquez
St John the Evangelist at Patmos
c. 1618
Oil on canvas, 135 x 102 cm
National Gallery, London
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Vermeer
Christ on the Cross
1632
Oil on canvas, 248 x 169 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Velazquez
Cristo en la cruz
1631
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Velazquez
Cristo despues de la flagelacion contemplado por almas
cristianas
1628
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