Peter Russell - Complete Works of Diego Velázquez

(1599-1660)

Contents

Delphi Classics 2015

Version 1

Masters of Art Series

Diego Velzquez

By Delphi Classics, 2015

Masters of Art - Diego Velzquez

First published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by Delphi Classics.

Delphi Classics, 2015.

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Velzquez birthplace, Seville, Spain

Seville in the sixteenth century, as depicted by Alonso Snchez Coello

Seville today

THE HIGHLIGHTS

In this section, a sample of Velzquez most celebrated works is provided, with concise introductions, special detail reproductions and additional biographical images.

Velzquez was born in Seville, Andalucia, the first child of Joo Rodrigues da Silva and Jernima Velzquez in 1599. His christening must have followed his birth by no more than a few weeks, or perhaps only a few days. Velzquez paternal grandparents were tradespeople, who had moved to Seville from their native Portugal decades earlier and were possibly Jewish conversos . Velzquez was educated by his parents for a learned profession, receiving good training in languages and philosophy. However, he showed an early gift for art and consequently began to study under Francisco de Herrera, a vigorous painter that disregarded the Italian influence of the early Seville school. Velzquez remained with him for one year and it was most likely from Herrera that he learned to use brushes with long bristles.

After leaving Herreras studio when he was twelve years old, Velzquez began to serve as an apprentice under Francisco Pacheco, an artist and teacher in Seville. Though considered a generally dull, undistinguished painter, Pacheco expressed a simple, direct realism in contradiction to the style of Raphael that he was taught. Velzquez remained in Pachecos school for five years, studying proportion and perspective, while keenly observing the trends of the literary and artistic circles of Seville.

By the early 1620s, Velzquez position and reputation were assured in Seville. On April 23, 1618, he married Juana Pacheco (1602-1660), the daughter of his teacher, who would bear him two daughters. Velzquez produced notable works during this time, establishing his name with amusing genre scenes, known locally as bodegnes (tavern scenes). The Three Musicians was completed by 1618 and depicts three young men grouped around a dinner table playing music. Painted in chiaroscuro, a Baroque painting technique that dramatically contrasts light and dark shadows to achieve a sense of volume, the canvas is one of Velzquez earliest extant works.

The table displays a detailed still life, with a loaf of bread on a napkin, a glass of wine and a piece of cheese with a knife pierced into it, allowing Velzquez to study various textures. Light falls from the left, creating sharp shadows and intense highlights. Two men with stringed instruments are singing while the third musician, evidently the youngest, has an instrument of his own under his arm and holds a glass of wine. He displays the glass with a mischievous smile, suggesting that wine acts as a muse, inspiring the musicians. In the background a monkey with a pear in its hand can be seen, emphasising the grotesque nature of the scene, perhaps stressing how the musicians are aping true music and by extension how the artist applies his materials to ape a scene of music.

An interesting feature of the canvas is its ambiguous nature: on the one hand we are presented with a simplistic genre representation, while on the other we are intrigued to question whether behind the supposedly everyday scene there are hidden layers of meaning, offering an allegory of sorts for us to decode.

Detail

Detail

Detail

Detail

Another bodegn work from the artists Seville period: The Lunch, c. 1618, Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Regarded by some as the artists greatest work during his Seville period, Old Woman Cooking Eggs is thought to date from around 1618 and is now housed in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. A typical feature of Velzquez bodegne artworks was his inclusion of working-class characters, in many cases using his family as models. The old woman central in the composition also appears in Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (1618). Once again the work demonstrates the artists interest in chiaroscuro , as a strong light source enters from the left, illuminating the woman, her utensils and the poaching eggs, while casting the background and the boy standing to her right into deep shadow. The chiaroscuro is so intense that it would be impossible to see the wall at the bottom of the painting, except for the basket hanging from it.