VELASQUEZ
While El Greco gave expression to the soul of Spanish chivalry and
religion, Velasquez embodied in its highest form the racial love of
naturalism. More than this, he stands above all other naturalistic
painters in truth of representation.
He is usually called a realist. But modern thought is investing this
term with a meaning that differentiates it from naturalism. Its use of
the word is akin to the philosophic meaning of realism, which recognises
the reality not only of the species or individual but also of the genus,
and considers the individual as a phase of the universal process which
causes it. Modern thought, in fact, applies the word realist to one who
views the particular in relation to the horizon at the back of it, to
the universal process of which it is a temporary manifestation. Thus it
calls Ibsen a realist, because, for example, in “A Doll’s House,” he
treats _Nora_ and her husband as phases of the universal problem of
marital relations. On the contrary, the playwright who presents merely a
cross-section of life, characters and incidents that are true to life
but are not treated in relation to the large horizon of ideas, governing
our principles of living, it calls a naturalist. The distinction is a
vital one and so clarifying to thought and understanding,
[Illustration:
PHILIP IV, OLD VELASQUEZ
THE NATIONAL GALLERY]
that to have once comprehended it should be to adopt it.
In the light of this distinction is Velasquez a naturalist or a realist?
In his portraits, which represent his supreme achievement, is one
conscious of anything but the absorbing realisation of an individual
personality? Do we think of them as typical of their time and country,
as are the subjects of El Greco’s portraits? Most certainly there is a
great exception in the marvelous _Portrait of Pope Innocent X_. Behind
his grim face extends a wide horizon of correlated ideas. The
psychological revelation and universal suggestion of this portrait seem
to declare that Velasquez was in mind a realist, but compelled by the
circumstances of his life to be a naturalist. Tethered to the Court, he
was chiefly occupied with painting the royal personages and their
immediate entourage. His was a scene, closed in, like a stage-scene by
the artificial routine of ceremony and punctiliousness, in which the
puppets, from Philip down to his dwarf play-things, posed. How could a
realist portray them in relation to the horizon of ideas involved except
by making them contemptible or ridiculous? But his duty as a Court
painter compelled Velasquez to close out the horizon, and to represent
these individuals with as much of dignity as possible. It is a
noteworthy fact that the _Innocent X_ was painted during the artist’s
second visit to Italy; while he was for a brief space quit of the
cramped conditions of his life, able to look out on men and things and
study them in relation to large issues. Also, the fact of it being his
second visit and that he was in the full maturity of his powers, implies
much. He was less preoccupied with individual impressions, more capable
and disposed to view even the Pope himself in relation to the political
and spiritual conditions of Rome and of the World.
But though Velasquez was compelled to be habitually a naturalist, he not
only avoided the commonplace which so frequently attaches to naturalism,
but proved himself the greatest naturalist in the whole story of
painting. He lifted naturalism to its highest pitch of expression. His
representations of life are characterised not only by living actuality,
but by consummate justness, high distinction and extraordinary beauty.
There is in all a union of mental supremacy and of supreme technical
artistry. Perhaps only Rembrandt, Hals and Raeburn give one so realising
a sense of being in the presence of a living personality, as we
experience before nearly all the portraits of Velasquez. With Rembrandt
we are usually conscious of an inseeing eye which penetrates the soul of
his subject and views it in relation to a wide horizon; for Rembrandt is
the great realist. Velasquez, on the other hand, shares with Hals and
the Scottish artist their restricted vision; but his is the finer,
suggesting his own finer quality of mind. Their minds were incapable of
the high seriousness, the noble aloofness of his. Hals, seen at his best
in the Haarlem groups, is one of the jolly fellows he is depicting;
Raeburn, an honest, sturdy gentleman among the gentry who sit to him.
Velasquez is always the aristocrat, looking out upon his subject from
the elevation of a superior mental dignity. It was because of this that
his portraits have the supreme _cachet_ of all great art: aloofness. The
separateness of his own mental personality from the ordinary thing
around him is communicated to the personages which he creates. They are
alone with themselves; whether monarch, dwarf or beggar, separated from
the common touch by virtue of their author’s art. In their remoteness
they are akin to Jan Van Eyck’s portrait of _Jean Arnolfini and his
Wife_ and Holbein’s _George Gyze_ and _Erasmus_; but these have not the
insistent suggestion of being actually alive. We recognise in them an
extraordinary illusion of life; but in front of _Philip IV_ in the
National Gallery, of _Moenippus_ and _Las Meniñas_ in the Prado, not to
mention other examples, the consciousness of illusion does not enter our
thoughts. We are face to face with truth; “verdad, no pintura,” as
Velasquez himself used to say was his ideal--“truth, not painting.” On
the other hand, the truth is saved from being merely lifelike, obvious,
by the rarifying quality of Velasquez’s own aloofness. His portraits
quiver on the razor-edge of truth and abstraction.
We have spoken of their consummate justness. This represents another
result of the high-bred nature of Velasquez’s mind; revealed in a tact
of selection, exposition and arrangement. He had an unerring feeling for
essentials, his most characteristic works being singularly sparing of
detail; a cultivated instinct for the salient gesture and expression,
and a rarely economical method of achieving them. His ability to plant a
figure on the floor, so that it bears down with its own weight and grows
up in its own strength; to give it characteristic action, at once
unified and rhythmic; to invest its contour lines with firmness and
precision as well as subtlety; to give to the smallest details, such as
the modeling of a glove, an individual character and, finally, to adjust
all these several qualities into an organized unity and place the
ensemble in perfect relation to the open space it occupies--his ability
to do all this is the measure of his justness.
To the high distinction of the result we have already alluded in
speaking of its dignity and aloofness. It is the product, alike, of
elevated mentality and of supreme technical accomplishment. The latter
brings us in touch with the cause of its extraordinary beauty.
What does beauty mean to us? If it is beauty of face and form--the easy
way to artistic beauty and to lay appreciation thereof--we shall seldom
find it in Velasquez’s pictures. The people whom it was his lot to paint
were mostly plain-featured, to use no harsher terms; their costumes
outrageously extravagant and not in the direction of elegance; the
coloring was sombre, only sparingly relieved with gaiety of color. Nor,
for the most part, were they people of force of character or with
suggestion of experience imprinted on their faces, so that in the
interest aroused thereby, one could forget their homeliness. To be
frank, they are mostly stupid persons, or at least apathetic. Whence,
then, the beauty? Its source is twofold: in the artist’s vision of his
subject and in his technical rendering of what he found.
The secret of an artist’s vision, when it is truly artistic, is that it
is inspired by a feeling for beauty and is looking for beauty. He is not
searching for something to represent, but for a means of expressing
what
[Illustration:
EQUESTRIAN PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IV VELASQUEZ
THE PRADO]
he feels of beauty. To such a one as Velasquez it matters little what he
is called upon to paint. He is not aware of those limitations which the
ordinary man calls ugliness. To him the subject is a manifestation of
life and life to him is beauty in every one of its aspects, and to
render that beauty is sufficient. And you may say that he finds life and
the beauty of life not only in the face and figure, action and gesture,
of his subjects, but in the clothes they wear and the accessories that
surround them. All are contributory to the sense of life with which the
subject inspires him, so that he extracts from fabrics and objects of
still-life a raciness of character or subtlety of expression that lifts
them above the ordinary and gives them the distinction of beauty.
But, after all, it is not so much a question of extracting beauty from
the subject as of putting beauty into it. The final achievement is one
of technique. There are hundreds of pictures which a layman can admire
without thought of technique. Interest of subject predominates, or at
least is sufficient to establish interest; charm of sentiment attracts,
or splendor of color or composition. But Velasquez’s compositions for
the most part are studiously reserved; his color sober; scarcely the
quiver of sentiment disturbs the equanimity of his subjects, and the
latter, in the ordinary sense of the term, have no human interest. Such
attractiveness, therefore, as they have, is almost completely what has
been put into them by his technique.
Take, for example, the bust-portrait (p. 92) of _Philip IV_ in the
National Gallery, assuredly one of Velasquez’s most notable
achievements. How languid the pale hair; the face, how foolishly
prolonged, flabby and expressionless! Imagine it painted by a
second-rate artist, and you would pass it by. But before this portrait
you pause and linger long. Why? neither you nor I can tell; except
simply that we are in the presence of the mystery of life, so that even
this sallow, puffed face attracts and rivets our admiration. Even a
painter cannot tell you how it was painted. Its technique eludes him.
Yet it is the technique which holds him to the spot. He _feels_ that
here the mystery of living structure and tissue has been compassed by
the mystery of the artist’s creativeness. Something of the same
suggestion of spontaneously created plasticity is to be found in the
beautiful child-portrait of _Don Baltasar Carlos_ in the Metropolitan
Museum, New York. Usually, however, the means by which the effect is
obtained may be discovered. You note the character expressed in some
detail of the canvas; and then approach until you see the brush strokes
that produced it, no less magical because patently apparent. In fact,
you find yourself let in behind the scenes of the artist’s dramatic
representation of facts and in a measure share the joy of creating the
illusion.
It is a hopeful theory that out of one’s limitations may grow one’s
greatest strength. And it is true of Velasquez. The very narrowness of
his scope of actual vision encouraged a closer scrutiny. He discovered
beauty in things which had escaped the notice of artists to whom larger
liberty of choice was allowed. This is particularly revealed in his
attitude toward color and light. The range of color-hues involved in the
costumes of his royal sitters was restricted; blacks and greys
prevailed, with occasional notes of rose or blue. Debarred from a
variety of hues, Velasquez learned to see the variety of nuances which
any one hue presents under the action of light. His blacks ceased to be
merely the negation of color; they took on silvery hues, and sometimes
brown ones. Even the bare drab wall of his studio became a field for the
play of light. He grew to be an intimate student of the identity of the
effects of light and color; noting how the “local hue” of an object
varies in color-value according to the quantity, direction and quality
of the light upon the various planes of its surface. Some artists before
his time had noted this principle, but none until Velasquez and
Hals--for it is a strange coincidence that the Dutch artist also was
following this track--had given a practical application to it. Others
had treated the local color, as if it were separate from chiaroscuro.
They would model the form in monochrome and then spread their local hue
over the whole in a thin transparent glaze which permitted the
underpainting of shaded, half-shaded, and light parts to be seen through
it. Velasquez actually modeled in the local color, by representing the
differences of color-values that it assumed, according as the rise or
depression of its surface caught more or less of light.
This, of course, is what other artists had done, notably Leonardo da
Vinci in his _Monna Lisa_, Jan Van Eyck and Holbein in their portraits;
but with a difference. They imitated each color-value as exactly as they
could, modeling their surfaces with innumerable facets. Velasquez, like
Hals, discovered for himself the principle of Impressionism; so far, at
least, as this term is applicable to technical processes. For its
meaning has become extended to include the artist’s mental standpoint,
so that to-day, when we speak of an impressionist, we mean one who in
literature, or drama, or painting or sculpture colors his impressions
according to the moods of his temperament. But in Velasquez there is
nothing of the temperamentalist. He is the cool, impartial observer of
objective facts. But, instead of seeing them, as Holbein did, in the
multiplicity of their detailed variations, he saw them in the large.
Primarily, that is to say, he aimed, not at perfection of parts, but at
a unity of ensemble. To secure this he sacrificed the less important to
the more important; eliminated the unessential and emphasised the
salient. His mental process was one of keen analysis, directed to the
question of what was and what was not essential, and also to the study
of the relative degrees of importance which the essentials bore one to
another and the whole. The end in view was to make the ensemble, not
only organically simple, but an organic unit.
No doubt Velasquez was led to these results by his study of color and
light. He not only discovered but made technical use of the fact that
light tends to unify the colors and forms of objects; that it
encompasses them and affects their contour lines, causing some to be
sharp and others more elusive, and also, as we have noted, changes the
values of their hues. Further, he became aware that under the action of
light colors act and react on one another; that, for instance, the value
of the flesh of a face will be affected by the color-light
[Illustration:
AN ACTOR, CALLED VELASQUEZ
“DON JUAN OF AUSTRIA”
THE PRADO]
of the costume or of other objects near it. Thus, we ourselves may have
observed how the white gown and face of a woman, seated on the grass,
will assume values of reflected green. Or, if we are acquainted with the
Lumière process of color-photography, we are familiar with the surprises
of unexpected reflections which the camera records.
All of these results of his study Velasquez employed to render the truth
of sight and to unify the impressions. For it was the sum of the
impressions he had received that he learned to render. He, in fact,
formed in his mind a net impression of the whole scene, then translated
each part into its proper share in the total of impression. It is a
process which in the case of so great an artist as Velasquez is an act
of high imagination, giving birth to an act of real creativeness. The
result, then, is not an imitation of nature’s truth but the new creation
of an equivalent artistic truth; yet, with such an illusion of natural
truth that it still meets his own ideal--“truth, not painting.” Hence
the stimulus which the spectator feels in the presence of his finest
works. He is urged to be an active participator; to retranslate the
equivalent of truth into the natural truth; to read from the shorthand
of the brush strokes the full text of the longhand; to adjust his own
eyes and mind to the reception of the impression and that a unified one.
He becomes, in fact, a part-creator in the picture; somewhat as an
intelligent spectator of a good play finds himself a part-actor in the
dramatic situations.
* * * * *
The story of Velasquez’s life is little else than an enumeration of
incidents in his career as an artist. He was born June 6, 1599, in
Seville, where his father, Juan Rodriquez de Silva, a lawyer of an old
Portuguese family, had settled. The mother was Geronima Velasquez. Hence
the son’s full name, Don Diego Rodriquez de Silva y Velasquez, was
shortened according to Andalusian custom into the family name of his
mother. His parents dedicated him to the study of letters and
philosophy, but yielded to his desire to become an artist. After a short
period in the studio of Francisco Herrera, he was placed under the care
of Francisco Pacheco, an academic painter of no great merit, but a man
of considerable learning, whose house was a resort of the most
cultivated society of the city. The young Velasquez profited so well by
these surroundings, that Pacheco accepted him as a son-in-law. He was
married to Juana Pacheco in 1618, the result of the union being two
daughters, Francisca and Ignacia, the former of whom subsequently
married Velasquez’s own pupil, Juan Bautista del Mazo. At this time, the
School of Andalusia, under the influence of Ribera’s pictures, was
abandoning Italianate mannerisms in favor of the naturalistic motive.
When the young king, Philip IV, ascended the throne in 1621, Pacheco
began to scheme that his most promising pupil should be brought to the
royal notice. A visit to Madrid was planned in 1622, and on this
occasion Velasquez gained the notice of the Count-Duke de Olivares, the
king’s prime minister and favorite, who in the following year summoned
him back to Madrid. Under the Count’s direction and aided by his purse,
Velasquez produced an equestrian portrait (which has disappeared) of
the king, who was so well pleased with it that he took the young artist
into his service. Thus, in 1623 began that mutual friendship of monarch
and painter, which resulted in a close companionship of nearly
thirty-seven years. It was interrupted only by the king’s occasional
journeys of state and by Velasquez’s two visits to Italy.
In 1628 Rubens arrived as an ambassador extraordinary from the King of
England. His visit was prolonged for nine months, during which he
painted several pictures for the King. Velasquez was deputed to act as
his escort in the visits which he paid to the Escoriál and to the royal
picture galleries. He was thus brought into touch with the most renowned
painter of the day at the period of his most splendid achievement. The
association must have broadened the young man, but it did not cause him
to falter in his own attitude toward nature and art. Rubens urged him to
go to Italy and study the great masters, and the King endorsed the
advice.
The first visit was made in 1629 under circumstances of importance. For
Velasquez started in the train of the Marquis Spinola, the most renowned
Captain-General of the age, whom he was to immortalize in the _Surrender
of Breda_, and on his arrival in Italy presented letters from the
Count-Duke de Olivares which procured him admission to the most famous
galleries. He copied some of the works of Michelangelo, Raphael and
Tintoretto, and brought back five original canvases: _The Forge of
Vulcan_, _Joseph’s Coat_, two views of the _Villa Medici_ and a
_Portrait of Doña Maria_. The first, notwithstanding its classic
subject, is naturalistic. Velasquez has taken advantage of the story of
Apollo announcing the infidelity of Venus to her husband, while he is at
work with his assistants, in order to make a study of the nude form, as
a vehicle for the expression of action and emotion. But the composition
has nothing of the method of Italian idealism, while it abounds with
charming passages of still-life painting, thoroughly Spanish. The Villa
Medici studies are particularly interesting evidence of Velasquez’s
preoccupation with nature, even among the masters in Rome, and his
serious regard for landscape, which forms an important feature in many
of his portraits. His return to Madrid in 1631 marks the end of what is
regarded as the first period of his career. The remainder is similarly
divided into two parts.
The chief works of the first period beside those already mentioned are
the early _Adoration of the Shepherds_ (National Gallery), _The Lady
with the Fan_ (Wallace Collection), _The Adoration of the Kings_, _Los
Borrachos_ or _The Topers_, and _Philip IV. Young_, all of which are in
the Prado.
Philip welcomed his artist back with new favors, appointing him to the
post of Aposentador Mayor, whose duty it was to superintend the
arrangements for the King’s lodging during his excursions to the
country. It was a means of keeping his friend with him, though it must
have seriously interfered with the work of the artist.
An influence of the first Italian visit may be traced in the large
decorative canvases which characterise the middle period. Olivares had
presented his palace of Buen Retiro to the King, and the latter employed
Velasquez and other painters to embellish it. Hence followed the
equestrian portraits of _Don Baltasar Carlos_, _Olivares_ and _Philip_
himself, and the historical picture, _The Surrender of Breda_. In
addition, this period produced the _Christ at the Pillar_ (National
Gallery) and the Prado portraits of _Philip IV as a Sportsman_, _Don
Baltasar Carlos as a Sportsman_, _Don Fernando de Austria as a
Sportsman_, _The Sculptor Montañéz_, and the portraits of dwarfs and
actors, among the latter the so-called _Don Juan de Austria_ (p. 100).
Velasquez started on his second visit to Italy in June 1649, and
returned to Madrid in the summer of 1651. It was on this occasion that
he painted the portrait of _Innocent X_, which is now in the Doria
Gallery in Rome. On his return home the King made him Marshal of the
Palace, which entailed upon him the onerous duties of arranging court
festivities. These, too, had encreased in frequency and pomp owing to
the King’s second marriage; this time with his niece, Mariana of
Austria, a girl of fourteen. Notwithstanding such interruptions
Velasquez produced during these last nine years of his life some of his
finest works and his masterpiece, _Las Meniñas_ (_The Maids of Honor_).
Among the other canvases are _S. Anthony Visiting S. Paul_; _Las
Hilanderas_ (_The Weavers_); _Portrait of Queen Mariana_ (p. 119);
_Portrait of Doña Maria Teresa_ (or _Margarita Maria_); _La Infanta Doña
Margarita Maria_, of the Louvre; _Philip IV Old_ (p. 92) and the _Venus_
(National Gallery); _Æsopus_, _Moenippus_, _The God Mars_, The Dwarf
called _Antonio El Inglese_, and the actor _Cristobal de Pernía, called
Barbarroja_. All the above, except those otherwise specified, are in the
Prado.
In June, 1660, the marriage, which had been arranged by Cardinal Mazarin
between the young Louis XIV and Philip’s daughter, María Teresa, was
celebrated upon the Isle of Pheasants, in the little river which
separates Spain and France on the West of the Pyrenees. The weight of
the burden of preparation and supervision fell upon the Marshal of the
Palace, and proved more than Velasquez could sustain. He broke down at
the end of the ceremony and, returning to Madrid, died a few weeks
later, August 6, 1660. His wife survived him only seven days.
* * * * *
In a work of this scope it is impossible to go into the questions which
have arisen over the authenticity of many of the pictures ascribed to
Velasquez. For information on this head the reader is referred to the
latest critical work on the subject--“Velasquez” by Señor A. de Beruete
y Moret, and to the continuation of the subject by his son in his recent
book, “The School of Madrid.” Both are published in English. The net
result of their study is that many of the pictures ascribed to Velasquez
are either copies of Velasquez’s work, made by his son-in-law and pupil,
Mazo, or original works of the latter, who from constant companionship
with Velasquez had learned to imitate his style so closely. Here, I will
satisfy the curiosity of the reader only by saying that these critics
pronounce the _Philip IV in Hunting Costume_, of the Louvre, to be a
copy, and the _Admiral Pulido-Pareja_, of the National Gallery, an
original, by Mazo.
By reference to a few examples, let us trace the evolution of
Velasquez’s way of seeing and rendering his subject. The earliest
picture in the Prado is _The Adoration of the Magi_. This is assigned to
about the year 1619, the probable date also of _The Adoration of the
Shepherds_ (National Gallery). Both, therefore, belong to the Seville
period. Perhaps in the _Magi_ we can detect something of the
sophistication of the learned Pacheco, as well as the influence of the
new naturalistic movement. The figures are naturalistic; while the
grouping and lighting are artificial, academical. The light is
arbitrarily centered on the Mother and Child; the shadows which envelop
the other figures are also arbitrary; neither shade nor light is
naturally distributed; the whole is a studio convention.
Velasquez finished _Los Borrachos_, (The Topers) in 1629, the year he
sailed for Italy. It represents the climax of his development during the
previous ten years, and what progress it exhibits! The distressing
murkiness of the older picture has disappeared; the chiaroscuro in this
is luminous; the flesh parts brilliantly lighted, the shadows warm and
transparent. But it still presents the studio chiaroscuro, designed for
the sake of the pattern and unity of the composition; the light and
shade are not nature’s. Wonderfully naturalistic, however, are the heads
of these peasants, brimming with character and life. The men are engaged
in a mock scene, in which a youth, playing the part of Bacchus, is
crowning a comrade with vine-leaves. As Señor Beruete says: “The Spanish
‘picaresca,’ or rogue comedy, which plays such a brilliant part in the
literature of that day, has never been better rendered than it is in
this astonishing picture.” But we note, in anticipation of the artist’s
further advance, that the picture presents only a pictorial ensemble,
not yet a natural unity. It is a mosaic of splendidly executed
items--faces, nude forms, costumes and still-life--each of which merits
and indeed demands individual study. As a _pattern_ the composition
holds together as a unit, but it does not present a unit of _sight_. One
cannot see it as a whole; the eye travels from point to point, resting
on each and enjoying it separately. The picture is a masterpiece of its
kind; but it is not of the kind that Velasquez at length achieved in the
single, unified vision of _Las Meniñas_.
_The Forge of Vulcan_, which Velasquez executed in Italy (1630-1631), is
remarkable, in the first place, for its freedom from the trace of
Italian influence. Velasquez had come face to face with the giants, but
had preserved completely his independence. Michelangelo and Tintoretto
had shown him their capacity to express emotion and dramatic energy in
the action of figures, particularly nude ones. Velasquez observes; but
applies the principles to suit his own ideal of truth; no heroics, or
pageantry of display; simply the natural expression of emotion, under
natural circumstances. The workshop, the articles of still-life, the
action of the men, have been studied from observed facts. Their work
having been suddenly interrupted, each man pauses for a
[Illustration:
LAS HILANDERAS (THE WEAVERS) VELASQUEZ
THE PRADO]
momment. How extraordinarily the arrest of action is suggested! Remark
particularly the gesture of the three, who have suddenly halted in the
sequence of their several hammer strokes. It is the figure of the god
only that seems out of place and touch with the rest. It is disagreeably
prettified, stiff and formal in gesture, with affected disposition of
the drapery. It seems to be an academic solecism amid the naturalness of
the scene.
The second point of interest is that in this picture Velasquez shows the
first marked feeling for tone. There is no brilliance here or richness
of hues, such as make _Los Borrachos_ glow like magnificent enamels. The
color-scheme is very reserved; drab, relieved with white flesh, brownish
black tools and armor and the golden-amber of Apollo’s drapery. It shows
the artist already feeling toward color as light; multiplying values
rather than hues; studying the local hues in the variety of the light
upon them, instead of applying to them an arbitrary chiaroscuro; even
contriving to give to his whole scene a certain envelope of atmosphere.
The figure, raised at the back, scarcely takes its proper place in the
aerial perspective; otherwise the scene, barring the artificial halo of
the god, represents an immense step in naturalistic expression.
We pass to the superb equestrian portraits of the little _Don Carlos_,
_Olivares_, and _The King_. I wish it had been possible to reproduce all
three in these pages; for, while they are all superbly decorative,
magnificently large in expression and thrilling with force, they
represent differences of psychological feeling. That of the _Carlos_,
the darling of the Court, is sprightly and lovable; _bravura_
distinguishes the ostentatious pleasure-loving courtier-favorite, while
a kingly gravity, tinged with the artist’s affection, ennobles the
_Philip_ (p. 96). The boy bounds forward from the landscape; _Olivares_
caracoles toward it, pointing to imaginary exploits; the King is placed
athwart it, his figure quietly dominating space. How carefully Velasquez
calculated this last effect is clear from the fact that two strips of
canvas have been stitched on to the sides of the original piece. The
artist evidently felt the need of more space to secure for the figure
the required ascendancy. It was a frequent practice of his to add a
piece to the top or sides of his canvas, which, as R. A. M. Stevenson,
himself an artist, has remarked, throws a light on Velasquez’s method of
work. He does not appear to have made careful original studies of his
subjects, a fact corroborated by the very few drawings that he left
behind. He rather seems to have attacked his subject immediately on
canvas, pushing it hotly forward to realise his mental picture, and
then, if necessary, adjusting the size of his canvas to secure a final
unity of feeling. For the same purpose also he sometimes changed the
drawing, as he proceeded, painting over the original design which now
frequently shows through. In this equestrian Philip IV, for instance,
even the photograph will show how he has altered the disposition of the
horse’s legs, bringing them nearer together, as if he had felt that the
more scattered positions detached from the quietude and dignity of the
ensemble.
The horse in this portrait as compared with that of the _Olivares_ is
deficient in splendor of muscular action. It is more monumental, the
brownish bay mass forming a magnificent support to the black armored
figure, with its pale rose sash. Philip was justly regarded the finest
horseman of his day. Observe the seat of the figure, how absolutely its
action is adjusted to that of the horse. Note, also, that while the
masses of the landscape support the horse’s mass, the king’s figure
shows free against the spaces of dove-grey sky; his black beaver with
its white and plum-colored plume lifting proudly against the white
cloud. Compare this setting of the hat upon the head, with the
respectively different treatment of the same details in the other two
portraits. Each is psychologically related to its subject. Compare also
the scintillating liveliness of the child’s embroidered costume and
fluttering scarfs, so birdlike in gaiety of plumage, with the sumptuous
bravado of Olivares’ gold-fringed, wine-red damask-silk bow, and his
gold-striped armor--the whole effect intentionally a trifle _outré_.
What a contrast of grave dignity in the King’s damascened breast-plate,
brown velvet, gold-embroidered breeches, greyish drab gloves, pale buff
boots and deep plum-red sash that floats over the horse’s stern! In the
ensemble of concentrated, controlled stateliness the only flashes of
accented energy are the horse’s white fetlock and his superbly animated
nostril and eye.
In his first period Velasquez painted an historical subject, _The
Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain_; but the picture perished in the
burning of the Alcázar in 1734. The _Surrender of Breda_ is therefore
the only example of his work in this genre. It was executed after his
first visit to Italy, where he had seen how Titian and Tintoretto
utilised such subjects for palace decorations. Velasquez, true to
himself, has tried to represent the scene as it actually might have
happened, yet with certain formalities of balanced masses, to meet its
decorative purpose. The picture, in fact, presents a mixture and, if one
may dare to say it of a picture so famed, a confusion, of motive. The
result is neither frankly an historical picture, such as Velasquez would
have imagined it and rendered it, if his intention had been single; nor
is it satisfactory as a decoration. The pattern of the composition is
handsome. So too its coloring, which includes a lovely blue sky, fleeced
with white; fainter blue and bluish-green and warm drab distance; blue
coated troops in the middle distance; and deep sapphire blue in the
squares of the flag on the right and in the breeches of the man whose
white shirt shows against a black horse on the left of the center, and
lastly in the costume of the man with a gun over his shoulder on the
extreme left. The coat of the adjoining figure is brownish buff; the
horse on the right, dark reddish brown. Spinola is clad in black armor,
studded with gold; Justin of Nassau in brown and gold. All this is
highly decorative, but not of itself sufficient to produce a decoration.
For the secret of a decoration lies in the treatment of the planes, so
that a sense of flatness may be preserved. There is nothing of that
here; the bulk and depth of the foreground masses contradict it. The
front figures of the man on the left and the horse opposite are alone
sufficient to prevent a mural feeling. On the other hand, from the point
of view of an historical picture, the attempt to treat the groups as
masses, seen against the background, has resulted in a certain confusion
of their planes, and in a general lack of interesting suggestion in
their details. Only the treatment of the two principal figures is
entirely satisfying. Nothing could exceed the beautiful expressiveness
of the conqueror’s noble condescension and the no less dignified
humility of the conquered. To this, the heart and soul of the
conception, the rest comes near to being but an ornamental and rather
distracting surplusage.
Of the three sportsmen portraits, that of the _King_ is again the
finest. That of his youngest brother, _Don Ferdinand of Austria_, is a
somewhat earlier work, painted, possibly, before the artist’s visit to
Italy; and the little _Don Carlos_, charming as it is, has lost a
portion of its canvas (it is suggested that it may have been cut from
its frame to save it at the time of the fire), so that the composition
has not the consummate propriety and dignity of the King’s portrait. The
latter is also distinguished by the masterly discretion of its tonality,
which is based on brown. The tree trunk is brown; the foliage brownish
olive; the cap and doublet lighter tones of the same and the trunks and
gaiters darker; the gun, light brown and the glove drab brown; the dog,
orange-tawny. Thus the figures and tree count as one handsome mass, in
which the predominant spot is the pale face, set off by the soft, blond
chestnut hair. The sleeve of the undercoat is black and silver, forming
a thread of minor emphasis to connect the head and the gloved hand, the
latter so full of character and technical distinction. The background
of landscape is composed of a stretch of tawny drab grass, sloping up to
bluish trees, seen against a grey sky, curdled with cream.
A fine example of the numerous portraits of dwarfs and actors, is that
of the buffoon, nicknamed _Don Juan de Austria_ (p. 100). The figure is
shown in a drab grey interior, from which a door opens on to a view of
sea-shore and a burning ship. The costume is of black velvet and a
peculiarly subtle pale claret-colored silk. The expression of the man is
one of concentration, to the suggestion of which every part of the
figure so curiously and completely contributes its share, uniting in a
perfect ensemble of feeling. In the atmospheric envelope and extreme
choiceness of color this canvas is a worthy prelude to the masterpieces
of the final period.
* * * * *
To one of the latter allusion has already been made: the _Philip IV_ of
the National Gallery. How infallibly just is the placing of the black
bust and head against the dark background! With what _finesse_ have been
calculated the accents of the chain and ornaments and collar, in order
to secure and at the same time alleviate the emphasis of the empty,
solemn head with its puffed, waxy features and soft, pallid hair! How
absolutely a unit is the whole impression! while the brush work is the
_ne plus ultra_ of impressionistic technique.
A miracle of painting also is presented in the portrait of a child,
identified variously as _Doña Margarita_ or _Doña María Teresa_, and in
that of the not much older _Doña Mariana de Austria_, Philip’s second
wife
[Illustration:
LAS MENIÑAS (THE MAIDS OF HONOR) VELASQUEZ
THE PRADO]
(p. 119). The child’s “guarda-infante” is of cloth of silver, woven
diagonally with pale rose silk, all ashimmer with veiled lustre.
Vermilion bows adorn her waist, a jeweled rosette of the same color her
corsage, while a small rosette under the left ear and a plume on the
right of the head, both vermilion, set off the soft straw-colored hair
and the fresh tender hues of her face. Curtain and carpet are a rosy
crimson, thus completing a tonal scheme of exquisitely delicate
vivacity. In the second portrait the Queen’s robe is of black velvet,
shot with brown, decorated with silver bullion. Notes of poppy scarlet
appear at her wrists, while a pale scarlet mingled with silver is the
color of the plume and of the ribbon flowers in her hair. The curtain,
in color pale rosy burgundy, frames a dark olive background, a concavity
of atmosphere, in the half-light of which appears a dainty gold clock
upon a table. These two canvases are marvels of technical achievement
and surpassing loveliness. A head and bust-portrait of this Queen,
apparently in the same costume, hangs in the Metropolitan Museum, New
York.
A broader method, in which one strongly feels the exhilaration of the
brushstrokes, is represented in the _Æsopus_ and _Moenippus_. The
grizzled black hair and pallid features of the former show against a
warm drab-olive background. In the lower right corner is a spot of black
and creamy fabric; opposite to it a creamy colored bowl; otherwise the
figure is a study in browns of peculiarly fine quality. The background
of the _Moenippus_ is somewhat colder than the _Æsopus_; in key with the
black cloak. The cap, boots, and the table and pitcher are of tones of
brown; the beard is grey and the flesh of the face ripely rubicund. Even
in the photograph one can appreciate the masterful breadth of the
draperies, and feel through the modulation of the values the bulk of the
figure beneath.
The _Venus_ of the National Gallery, if it is to be reckoned among the
works of Velasquez, is his only example of a female nude. While it
attracts at first, it subsequently proves disappointing. In the
emptiness of the back it is hard to recognise the hand of the master,
who in early days modeled so skilfully the man’s back in the _Forge of
Vulcan_ and whose modeling generally is so masterly and full of
interest. Nor can we easily reconcile with his unerring truth of
observation the drawing of the reflection in the mirror, which instead
of being smaller than the real head is somewhat larger. Moreover the red
of the curtain and general color scheme lack the choiceness and subtlety
of the canvases of the latest period, to which the _Venus_ is assigned.
We reach now the two celebrated masterpieces: _Las Hilanderas_, (_The
Weavers_), (p. 109) and _Las Meniñas_, (_Maids of Honor_) (p. 114). They
are very different. Both are triumphs alike of science and of inspired
vision; yet, by comparison, I should distinguish the _Maids of Honor_ as
a miracle of vision, the other as a marvel of science. For we may be
conscious of the science in the one and lose thought of it entirely in
the other. In _Las Meniñas_ the unity of the ensemble seems as artless
as the scene depicted; in _Las Hilanderas_ it is perhaps less complete,
certainly less simple and seems to suggest the consummate knowledge
needed to achieve it. The interest of the former pervades the whole
chamber and centers in the little princess. That of _Las Hilanderas_,
seems, at least at first, to be distributed into three parts, and the
focus point for the eye--Where is it?
Studying the two pictures, as is possible in the Prado, since they hang
upon the same wall, near enough for the eye to travel backward and
forward from one to the other, one discovers, I believe, that the
problem involved in each is the reverse of that of the other. _Las
Meniñas_ shows a partially lighted interior, with the chief light on the
little figure in the foreground; while the problem of the other picture
is a dimly lighted, or rather darkened foreground, and a fully lighted
background. In _Las Hilanderas_, in fact, the artist’s chief motive was
the alcove, pervaded by a clear light that illumines the blues, greys
and pale rose of the tapestry. Velasquez had seen it so and realised how
the effect was heightened by the dimness of the spot in which he stood.
Conscious of this, one begins to understand that the focus point of this
picture is the shaded dull-red figure in the center of the middle
distance. But it is a focus point of departure; not, as in _Las
Meninas_, designed to draw our attention to it, but to direct it to the
lighted space behind. When once we have recognised this, order begins to
establish itself in what seemed to be the divided interest of the
canvas. The beautiful figure, on the right, of the girl in a white
chemise no longer holds our attention too exclusively. We see in her the
artist’s twofold purpose of explaining the front plane of his scene, and
pointing through the shaded figure to his main motive. We have
discovered the proper view of sight; it is in front of this girl,
looking diagonally toward the alcove, and the group on the left is
introduced to balance the composition. Yet even now, after one thinks
one has captured the secret of the unity of the ensemble, so cunningly
achieved, the beautiful figure of the girl on the right of the
foreground may arrest our interest and distract it from the whole. It is
because of this, that for my own part, there seems to be more of science
than of inspiration in this vision.
Not so with _Las Meniñas_. Here one forgets to analyse--there is no need
to do so--one simply accepts the scene and feels its consummate truth.
How consummate it is, only familiarity with the original can reveal. It
is a truth that grows upon the consciousness, stimulating it to demand
more and yet more difficult tests of its truthfulness, and satisfying
every one. And the unity which is the secret of the truth has not been
obtained by monotony of hue. The canvas is alive with color, strong
notes of most vivacious hue. The Princess’s dress is creamy silver with
a bunch of rose on her breast. This rosy note is echoed in varying
tones: in the glass that is being presented to her; on the artist’s
palette; in the curtain reflected in the mirror at the back where the
King and Queen appear; in the bright cuff ribbons on the silvery grey
dress of the maid-in-waiting on the right, and in the dull rose costume
of the child on the extreme right. The dwarf next to him wears a dress
of slaty blue, decorated with silver; the kneeling maid, a greenish grey
upper dress over a skirt of deep greyish green, and Velasquez himself is
in black. But
[Illustration:
DOÑA MARIANA DE AUSTRIA VELASQUEZ
THE PRADO]
the mere enumeration of the colors gives no idea of their positive
vivacity, as they show out brilliantly in the light, and none of the
marvellous realisation of the textures. Nothing has been evaded; nothing
seems to have given the artist a moment’s pause or difficulty. Yet, when
all is said, the greatest marvel is the concavity of the drab-grey room,
filled with luminous atmosphere; clear, around the foreground figures,
but with infinite nuances of clearness, melting into varieties of
penetrable mystery in the receding perspective. In the whole scene not a
trace of evasion or confusion! Everything is readily comprehended,
because rendered with immediate precision, as if in a moment of
infallible improvisation.
_Las Meniñas_ was not only the matured achievement of Velasquez’s long
research into the effect of light upon color and upon their relations to
one another in space; it was a new kind of picture. It is composed,
built up of light. According to older conventions of composition the
large space above the figures would be considered empty. But here it is
not empty; it is filled with tones of light, with luminous aerial
perspective that balances the group of lighted forms below. Possibly the
photograph may not convey this impression to one who has not seen the
original. But in the presence of the latter there can be no doubt of it.
The upper part is as full of material as the lower; we may even find it
more beautiful, because so infinitely subtle and stimulating to the
imagination. Never before or since has the truth of natural appearances
been so marvellously rendered, or the beauty of every day truth been so
heightened by the artist’s inspired imagination. _Las Meniñas_ is an
apocalypse, the revelation of a supreme vision.
In the decline of Spanish art and the general interest of Europe in
Italianate and rococo motives, Velasquez during the eighteenth century
was forgotten. Toward the end of that century, however, Goya derived
inspiration from his works, and nearly a hundred years later Manet,
Whistler and others rediscovered him. His example has been the chief
influence in leading the world back to regard a painting as a work of
art, and in teaching the painter himself the technique that will entitle
it to be so considered. The duration of his influence has corresponded
with the vogue of naturalism which has prevailed in Literature and the
Fine Arts, a reflex action of the general scientific attitude of the
time. The vogue is passing, and Velasquez’s immediate _influence_ may
grow less. But his _reputation_ will endure, because it is founded upon
the lasting foundation of “truth, not painting.”