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The Face of Spain
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A Humane Equilibrium
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In the Salon de Reinos, the throne-room of Buen Retiro where
courtly ceremony was displayed to the full, symbolically
representing the monarchy to the outside world, a series of ten
pictures by Zurbaran on the theme of Hercules hung beside the
equestrian portraits of members of the Spanish ruling house of
Habsburg. There were also twelve battle scenes showing the latest
victories won under Philip IV. All the military paintings follow the
same standard pattern: they banish war itself to the background and
show the victorious commanders full-length in the foreground, where
the figures of rulers are usually placed in other works.
The battle pieces may well have been painted by Velazquez' artistic
colleagues Eugenio Caxes (1573/74-1634) and Vicente Carducho, or by
Zurbaran. They are not particularly original, unlike the paintings
by Fray Juan Bautusta Maino and (as one might expect) by Velazquez
himself. Maino's painting was taken from the subject of a play by
Lope de Vega celebrating the recapture of Bahia in Brazil by the
Portuguese and Castilians after its occupation by the Dutch.
However, the main theme of the picture is not so much the battle as
the noble magnanimity of the victors and their care for the wounded.
In The Surrender of Breda, painted in 1634 to 1635,
Velazquez too makes a fundamental statement about humane conduct
amidst the horrors of war. Many contemporary witnesses felt sure
that the long struggle for the Netherlands would determine the
future position of Spain as a world power. The most important
fortress in the southern Netherlands was Breda in Brabant, and the
strategic significance of the place was correctly assessed by Philip
IV 's best commander in the Thirty Years' War, Ambrosio Spinola, a
rich Genoese nobleman who had been awarded the Order of the Golden
Fleece. The commander of the fortress on the opposite side, Justinus
of Nassau, was another military man famous throughout Europe. After
a four-month siege and when all the provisions in the fortress had
run out, he was forced to petition for an honourable surrender.
Spinola allowed him to leave under conditions that were extremely
generous for the period.
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Velazquez
The Surrender of Breda (Las Lanzas)
1634-35
Oil on canvas, 307 x 367 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Velazquez
The Surrender of Breda (detail)
1634-35
Oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
Velazquez met Spinola himself during his first visit to Italy.
In the picture he
emphasizes the commander's nobility and humanity.
Spinola is chivalrously
receiving his defeated opponent Justinus of Nassau,
laying a hand on his
shoulder in recognition of his enemy's feats,
and apparently ignoring the
humiliating act of the surrender of the key.
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The official surrender took place on 5 June 1625. The conquered army
was permitted to leave the city with dignity, carrying its colours
and its weapons. Spinola was waiting on horseback at the city gate
with a few noblemen, and magnanimously saluted the Dutch general as
he came first out of the fortress, followed by his wife riding in a
carriage.
News of the victory was greeted with relief and delight in Madrid,
and by Pope Urban VIII in Rome. The Pope congratulated Spinola on
washing his hands in the blood of the heretics. A play by Calderon
de la Barca on the subject of the siege of Breda was performed in
Madrid in November 1625. The dramatist makes Spinola say of his
adversary, in a proud yet modest phrase that has become proverbial,
"The valour of the conquered makes the conqueror famous". The young
Velazquez probably saw the production of this play at court. Now,
nine years later and after making many drawings as preparatory
studies, he was to paint a historical picture on the subject. During
his work he kept casting a critical eye on the events shown on his
canvas, correcting and painting over them, yet the final result
conveys a sense of great ease. Velazquez had painted one of the most
famous and accomplished war pictures in the history of art - and it
is surely the most deeply moving in human terms.
An impressive and dramatic scene of war unfolds on the huge canvas.
The viewer has an aerial view of the now silent battlefield in the
distance; smoke rises from fires beneath clouds and blue-grey mists.
We look across trenches, water-works and blockhouses; only Breda
itself is absent from the picture. The brightly lit background,
bathed in shades of pale blue and pink, suggests the landscape
backgrounds of Tintoretto. The Dutch are coming up from the depths
of the picture, passing from right to left through the double line
of upright Spanish spears. Velazquez makes this dense forest of
spears pointing to the sky so dominant a feature of the picture as a
whole that it has given the painting its sub-title of Las Lanzas.
By now the protagonists have assembled on the rising ground in
front, which is the main scene of the action and on the viewer's
eye-level. There are nine figures on each side: the Dutch to the
left, the Spanish to the right. The group on the left opens up and
the Dutch commander steps forward, his glance sad and weary,
sketching a bow as he hands over the key of the city. With
delicacy of feeling, Spinola bends down to him and lays his mailed
hand on his enemy's shoulder with a courteous smile - a sympathetic
and a noble gesture. Behind him, a groom forces a magnificent
nervously prancing horse to one side.
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Velazquez
The Surrender of Breda - Spanish Soldier (detail)
1634-35
Oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Velazquez
The Surrender of Breda (detail)
1634-35
Oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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The group of defeated men is constructed more loosely and with more
variety of lighting and colour than the well-disciplined company of
victors: the Dutch are weather-beaten soldiers like the musketeer on
the left of the picture; the Spanish are more elegant and
sophisticated. The wall of spears, the weapons of the undefeated tercios, the famous Spanish infantry, emphasizes their still
menacing power, at the same time lending the military commander's
humanity and merciful conduct its full weight and providing a foil
for it.
The bearing and appearance of the soldiers display Velazquez'
inexhaustibly rich orchestration of their feelings and their states
of mind. In some of the faces he has taken his inspiration from
types of his own invention, for instance the figures in the Forge of
Vulcan. The officer with chestnut-brown hair to the right
behind Spinola represents Don Pedro de Barberana, a knight of the
Order of Calatrava, whom the court painter had already portrayed in
1631/32. The vibrant application of paint, the painter's
extraordinary understanding of the way in which light and the
atmosphere can change colours, the symphony of brilliant and muted
tones that fills the picture, making it sparkle and glow with joyful
harmonies, the manner in which the composition concentrates
dramatically on the surrender of the key while the formal rhythms of
victory and defeat unfold, all mark a crucial watershed in the art
of Velazquez.
The Surrender of Breda, which contains no allegorical or
mythological references, is indisputably the first purely historical
picture in modern European painting, and among the outstanding works
of world art. In another manner, and one that is always striking and
sometimes curiously moving to modern observers, Velazquez shows
human nature in all its diversity when he presents the gallery of
dwarfs and jesters who lived at court and whose task it was to
preserve the king from boredom in the midst of routine etiquette.
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Velazquez
The Surrender of Breda (detail)
1634-35
Oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Velazquez
The Surrender of Breda - Self-Portrait (detail)
1634-35
Oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Under cover of joking, the court jesters or buffoons, in Spanish
truhanes, would often tell their lords and masters the home truths
openly discussed by the ordinary people. They could move freely in
the king's presence, trying to amuse the naturally melancholic
Philip IV with their caustic remarks. To judge by their salaries,
their position in society was quite high. Velazquez himself, on
entering the service of the palace as a court painter, had at first
been classed with the royal servants, and as a result shared the
life of these truhanes. The dwarfs who acted as living toys - and
sometimes as whipping boys for the young princes and princesses
-were regarded differently. The hidalgos and ladies of the time, who
enjoyed normal stature, probably felt particularly privileged both
in mind and body by comparison with the stunted growth and wizened
faces of the dwarfs.
Finally, and in the lowest social category, came those freaks of
nature, the harmlessly deranged, constituting a kind of human
menagerie. With his brilliant powers of observation and his
psychological sensitivity, Velazquez recorded every detail of the
physical abnormalities and confused minds of this curious class of
society, with perfect honesty, but never mocking or caricaturing
them, never depicting them with perverse pleasure, or indeed with
feigned or sentimental pity. On the contrary, we sense a stoically
calm humanity in his attitude to these sitters - and we recognize a
greatness of mind that was in no way inferior to his artistic
genius.
The first portrait Velazquez painted in 1628/29 of a court jester
was that of Juan Calabazas or Calabacillas. Ten years later, around
1637-1639, he painted him again. All the firm lines have now
gone from the buffoon's face; instead, its surface consists of an
extraordinarily subtle texture of colour and shade, while the white
lace collar is a fantastic, filmy tissue. The small eyes look out
from deep sockets. The motif and the sense of picturesque unreality
convey the idea of a strange intermediate world where the court
jester perhaps lived his real life.
The Dwarf Francisco Lezcano, painted by Velazquez around
1643-1645 as a retarded boy of fifteen, was a burlesque piece that
formed part of the decoration of the Torre de la Parada. The
feeble-minded dwarf, dressed in green, is lovingly caressing the
playing cards he holds. His bloated, over-large features are almost
monumental, and a curious beauty plays over the face of the
hydrocephalic dwarf.
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Velazquez
The Dwarf Don Juan Calabazas, called Calabacillas
1637-39
Oil on canvas, 106 x 83 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Velazquez
The Dwarf Francisco Lezcano, Called "El Nino de Vallecas"
1643-45
Oil on canvas, 107 x 83 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Velazquez
Court Dwarf Don Antonio el Ingles
c. 1640-42
Oil on canvas, 142 x 107 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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For his pictures of these fools and dwarfs Velazquez often chose the
format of a rectangle coming down close to the head, within which
the figures crouch as if in a compact, closely circumscribed world;
another example is the portrait of A Dwarf Holding a Tome on his Lap. This picture, painted around 1645, was also in the Torre de
la Parada. We are not sure of the name of the sitter clad in elegant
black with an extravagant hat, leafing through a book and appearing
to take a great interest in literature. Was he in fact "El Primo",
who believed himself, as the nickname indicates, a cousin of
Velazquez? Is he the same dwarf as the one shown behind Prince
Baltasar Carlos in a painting of c. 1636. His
identity remains a matter of controversy and is perhaps of no
importance by comparison with the fascinatingly life-like depiction
of his figure in front of a strangely eerie background.
The dwarf who, along with El Primo, enjoyed the highest esteem at
court was Don Sebastian de Morra. He is probably the subject of A
Dwarf Sitting on the Floor. There are two versions of this
portrait, both painted around 1645. The composition is extremely
original, and in the twentieth century Salvador Dali was inspired to
produce a surrealistic paraphrase. The bearded dwarf is
sitting on the floor, wearing green with a short red cloak. His legs
are stretched out in front of him, feet pointing upwards in a
comical position that shows the viewer the dirty soles of his shoes,
and his stumpy arms contrast with his massive torso, making it look
almost like a monumental bust. The intense play of light and shade
and the deliberately broad application of highlights illustrate the
dwarf's irascible character.
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Salvador Dali
Velazquez Dying behind the Window on the Left Side out of which a
Spoon Projects
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Velazquez
The Dwarf Sebastian de Morra
c. 1645
Oil on canvas, 106,5 x 81,5 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
This painting, a copy of which by Velazquez is also extant, originally hung in
the Alcazar in Madrid.
Today the picture has been considerably cut down,
particularly at the right-hand border.
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____________
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Diego Velazquez:
The Dwarf "El Primo"
(Norbert Schneider)
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Velazquez
Don Diego de Acedo (El Primo)
c. 1645
Oil on canvas, 106 x 83 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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It was customary at the courts of Europe during the seventeenth
century - indeed, right up to the French Revolution - for monarchs
to keep dwarfs. Together with other "prodigia" (monsters), these
"errors of Nature", as one contemporary referred to them, provided a
source of amusement. "Considered rare attractions at the royal
courts, dwarfs were bought and sold throughout Europe. They were
decked with finery, adorned with jewellery and gold, and shown off
at ceremonies of state, or on festive occasions. Often, they were
presented as gifts, or as a surprise spectacle, a fashion to which
not even church dignitaries were immune."218
This "fashion", which had spread to Europe from the Ottoman court,
was linked to yet another, similar custom. For their entertainment
aristocratic households would keep a number of fools who were
privileged to make witty or pointed remarks and to engage in
provocative parodies, thus challenging legal and conventional taboos
and providing an anarchic counter-balance to the vacuum of critical
opinion at court. Undoubtedly, this showed the survival - albeit in
isolated pockets, and in much reduced form - of the medieval
tradition of "fooles", whose carnivalesque origins probably lay in
the Roman Saturnalia, and whose burlesque goings-on set up a kind of
popular political and ecclesiastical opposition for a short period
of every year (between the end of December and Epiphany on 6
January), exposing many feudal institutions, especially those of the
church, to ridicule and criticism. The tradition of oppositional
jest had then entered the early absolutist courts via the travelling
conjurers, the "loculatores".
Since the late fifteenth century there had been an increasing demand
for the normative ideals of logic in reason and regularity in
appearance - the attempt, for example, to establish a canon of
proportions for the expression of ideal beauty has been referred to
above. Deviations from such norms must increasingly have come to
appear comical, or grotesque, or as crimes against a nature whose
very essence was thought to be ordered uniformity. Indeed, without
the existence of norms, the mere sight of deformed, crippled or mad
people, or the lack, or imaginary lack, of "iudicum" (powers of
discernment), could not have provided occasion for scorn and
ridicule. At the same time, the image of the fool tended to
oscillate between one that saw him as unnatural, the representive of
everything that was evil and sinful, and its opposite, in which the
fool's wisdom lay precisely in his innate access to a language
mentally distorted enough to adequately describe the absurdity of
reality. The latter notion played a role in Erasmiamsm, a humanist
school of thought, widespread among the Spanish, educated elite of
the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, based on works such
as Erasmus's. "In Praise of Folly" (Monae encomion). Enlightened
parodies of conventional thinking now began to attribute a positive
meaning to terms such as "stultitia" (stupidity) and "insania"
(madness).
It is not known whether Diego Velazquez sympathised with Erasmiamsm.
Nonetheless, his sympathy for the fools and dwarfs of the Spanish
court is obvious: in the pathos and humane understanding
demonstrated by the single portraits with which he (and he alone)
paid tribute to them. It has been pointed out that courtly etiquette
- for seating arrangements at audiences, for example, or for
seat-numbering at bull-fights - placed Velazquez in the same
category as dwarfs and fools. As "Pintor del Rey" (Painter to the
King) he was relegated to the fourth row among the barbers and
footmen.
A particularly impressive portrait is Velazquez's painting of the
dwarf Don Diego de Acedo, alias El Primo (The Cousin),
probably commissioned by the court and executed at Fraga in about
1644. Like the midget Sebastian de Morra, who served in the retinue
of the Infante Don Fernando and Prince Baltasar Carlos, El Primo is
shown sitting, and is viewed slightly from below. The effect of
presenting them from this dignified aspect is to raise their status
in the eyes of the spectator. El Primo is portrayed leafing through
the pages of an enormous tome. His small size makes the books
surrounding him appear even more gigantic than they are. His
occupation here is undoubtedly a reference to his administrative
duties at the court. At the same time, it is probably an example of
humanist satirical jest, which would often decry the senseless
writing and reading of books as a contemptible vice. Contemporary
spectators would never have accepted that a dwarf knew how to use
the attributes of a scholar; the artist thus seems to be using an
apparently grotesque discrepency to poke fun at the pseudo-scholars
of his day. The satirical tradition had spread throughout Europe via
the humanists, and Velazquez's knowledge of it is evident in his use
of ideal types in portraits of the Cynic philosopher Menippus (MOENIPPVS,
c. 1636-40) and the Greek composer of fables Aesop (AESOPVS, c.
1636-40), possibly painted for the hunting lodge Torre de la Parada,
near the Buen Retiro Palace. It was here, too, that many of his
portraits of court fools and dwarfs were hung, possibly including
that of El Primo. Aesop's face with its flattened nose was probably
not — as is commonly thought — painted after a man of the people
(even if the painting did attempt to show a simple man whose
features were marked by toil, and who therefore represented the
Cynic ideal of the modesty and wisdom of the people). The portrait
seems rather more reminiscent of Giovanni Battista della Porta's
physiognomic parallels between various types of human faces and the
heads of animals associated with certain temperaments. Aesop had,
during Classical antiquity, been seen in conjunction with the Seven
Sages; Menippus was known as a castigator of hack philosophers, whom
he satirised in different literary genres.226 It is to the vice of
sham scholarship, too, that Velazquez's portrait of the dwarf El
Pnmo seems to allude.
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