Spanish painter In Spanish Diego de Silva there Velázquez. Artist appreciated in his time of the court of Spain like Rubens, then forgotten or ignored during two centuries, the painter, who could seize in his protocolar portraits the weaknesses of the Spanish monarch or the serious mine of the small infantes, will see his technical control and his genius again recognized only to the XIX E century.
Rediscovered by Manet and Renoir, but already copied by Delacroix, then, at the century following by Picasso or Francis Bacon, Vélasquez a place of first rank thanks to an originality reconquers that Roberto Longhi will define in 1927 like a “infallibility of lynx” and like not being “simple naturalism”, but “a personal manner to see with an acute naturalness that few artists had”. It remains that its character diverts: its occupation of painter occupies a place difficult to define in a career of courtier to which it devoted much time and energy, and which will lead it to the ridge of the honors and the social pyramid.
A young person From Seville talented Diego Rodríguez de Silva Velázquez (in French, Vélasquez) was born in June 1599 there, in Seville. His/her parents, of noble Portuguese ascent, put it in training in the workshop of the painter Francisco Herrera the Old man. He is only ten years old and remains only a few months in this workshop. The following year, it enters that of Francisco Pacheco, artist scholar with whom the father of Diego signed an apprenticeship contract committing it to teach the art of painting to the child during six years. In 1616, Pacheco reaches the load of critic of the works of art, conferred by the inquisitive one of Seville.
The following year, the Vélasquez young person, who is not yet seventeen years old, is allowed in the corporation of the painters of the city. In 1618, he marries the girl of his Master, Juana de Miranda, born in 1602. It is of this year 1618 that date one of its first known works, the Old woman making cook eggs, of which the composition is sometimes rented like a wonder of calculation, sometimes depreciated for its bodegón (still life) hard. Discussion considered as futile by Yves Bottineau, who admires there “radiant hardness” and the “sculptural purity” of the faces.
One estimates same year a fabric, the Pilgrims of Emmaüs, of which the duplicated structure announces Jesus at Marthe and Marie (1619-1620). The principal scene is relegated to the second plan and is caught a glimpse of as by a window, letting spread in the foreground a decoration of bodegón. The process falls under an esthetics appreciated by the XVII E Spanish century, in particular with the scene, where Calderón of Barca and Lope of Vega Carpio develop the topic of the theater in the theater.
Another work from Seville, the water Salesman (1620) gives a monumentality seizing to the ground jug in foreground and to the full coat of the salesman; the characters, who stage themselves in the shade, are slightly eccentric compared to the enormous streaming water jug from which all is built according to rigorous obliques tracing a network of parallels in a set of triangles. The popular roughness, the roughness of the fabrics reinforce the austerity of the page layout, which was undoubtedly appreciated royal guard, because this work belonged to the collections of its residence of Buen Retiro.
The painter continues with a care are equivalent his family life - his/her two daughters are born in 1619 and 1621 -, the development of his workshop - Diego de Melgar enters at his place like apprentice - and his social career. In 1621, as of his advent, Philippe IV names Prime Minister his confidant, the count-duke of Olivares, large amateur of Article Alors sounds for Vélasquez the beginning of his rise. Thanks to the relations of his father-in-law, the painter is called for the first time in Madrid. This voyage is yet hardly profitable. It however makes it profitable to visit the royal collections and brushes the portrait of Luis de Góngora, poet well in court which it meets on the councils of its father-in-law: perspicacious Francisco Pacheco knows that the court is the only place where will be able to open out the talent of his/her son-in-law. Vélasquez, which had come to Madrid with its Melgar pupil, sets out again for Seville. The following year, in 1623, it receives the sum of fifty ducats on the part of Olivares and takes again the way of Madrid, accompanied this time by Pacheco. It carries out some portraits, and soon that of the king, and on on October 6th obtains a first title of painter of the king. From now on paid, it settles in the capital with its family. Since 1627, he is considered in his country, but also in Italy, like the Spanish great painter of his time. But this celebrity is not free from criticisms, which are worth to him its predilection for the scenes of the popular life and its naturalism.
The Drinkers, table also called in the inventories the Triumph of Bacchus, is carried out in Madrid in 1628, before the departure of the painter for Italy. The fabric will be a length and great success: engraved by Goya, it would not have left indifferent Cézanne. Treated by Rubens, the topic leaves an undecided impression, and mixes it mythological evocation and picaresque characters sharpened research: is it of a mythological scene, a parody or evocation of a real event? The capped hilarious drinker of a hat is a resumption of a character of a fabric allotted to Rubens; this quotation, united with other elements which an analysis of the details reveals, would indicate of the references to the Flanders.
The first voyage in Italy In 1628, Rubens achieves its second voyage to Madrid. It is considered that it is thanks to the influence and in support of this painter-diplomat that Vélasquez can undertake a first voyage in Italy: on August 10th, 1629, it embarks for Genoa. One wonders about the more or less confidential missions which could be entrusted to the painter, provided with recommendations gotten by Olivares, that he courts with intelligence. But the great business is probably for him “to improve in its profession”.
Its voyage leads it to Milan, Venice, Bologna and Rome, where it will be delayed one year. It is in this city that it probably painted Jacob receiving the tunic of Joseph and the Forging mill of Vulcan. These two works, bought by Olivares and offered to the king Philippe IV, are Italianists in more than one way: the anatomy occupies there a place which it will not find in the work of Vélasquez, and the light, almost Venetian, sometimes plays with the shade, evoking Caravage, sometimes envelope the scene and makes vibrate the colors.
On the way of the return to Madrid, Vélasquez passes by Naples, where it meets its compatriot Jose de Ribera, in the workshop of which it perhaps carries out the portrait of the Marie infante, sister of Philippe IV and future queen of Hungary, from which there remains only one draft for a full-length portrait, today lost.
The painter of the king Of return to Madrid, Vélasquez makes the portrait of the young person son of Philippe IV, prince Baltasar Carlos, and of various characters of the court, for which it is remunerated. In 1663, his/her oldest daughter, Francisca, marry a painter of her entourage, Mazo, to which Vélasquez transmits the load of usher of the room, that it had obtained six years before. Appointed usher of the court in 1633 then, in 1634, servant of the wardrobe, Vélasquez sees itself paying purchases of tables that it had made at the time of his voyage in Italy. Its new load is worth to him to deal with the interior decoration of the palate and the apartments of the king.
In 1643, promoted superintendent of will obras reales, it becomes also responsible for architecture. Lastly, in 1646, it reaches the load of manservant idiot oficio and, for this reason, it occupies a considerable place at the time of the official ceremonies. The following year, it mainly supervises installations of the “octogonal part”, dreaming to make of this living room the equivalent of the platform of the Uffizi Gallery. To conclude these various tasks, the painter receives a housing within the boundary of the royal residence, Put it del Tesoro.
Considered for its nonchalance, others will say its phlegm, or at least making watch of a certain reserve, it can gain and preserve the protection and the friendship of the king. In this court considered for its austerity and its choking and frozen atmosphere to which succumb the majority, Vélasquez brings a quickness of mind and a love of the life which allure the king and serve his taste of the size. The perseverance of which it shows in progressive obtaining increasingly high loads, the obstinacy which it deploys to join together hundred forty-eight testimonies of its nobility into 1658 give a contrasted image and somewhat diverting that which Manet calls the “painter of the painters”.
For the tenth birthday of the catch of Breda, in the Netherlands, by a man of Genoese war, the marquis de Spinola, Vélasquez receives the ordering of a table commemorative intended for the residence of Buen Retiro, and which it carries out in 1634-1635. Vélasquez does not know the countries of North, and it is documented lengthily, more particularly on and the course layout of the premises of the episode. It appoints the moment when Justin de Nassau, governor of the city, give the keys to the winner. The military fact is evacuated with the profit of a moral and edifying scene, where the winner announces himself by his generosity and his nobility of heart. With this Rendering of Breda, also known under the title the Lances, the historians of art give multiple iconographic and model sources of composition. The reason for the lances would return indifferently to Paolo Uccello, Piero della Francesca or to Greco.
As for the central group joining together Nassau and Spinola, one does not grant to him less than four prototypes: an engraving of Solomon, a fabric of Greco, one of Véronèse and one of Rubens. Beyond these multiple references to which one can attach the Lances, the style of Vélasquez is entire present in this work: monumentality of the characters of left and the horse of right-hand side, nobility of the attitudes of the central group, luminosity of the vaporous landscape of the second plan.
Among the works most characteristic and most worrying of Vélasquez the series of the dwarves and the buffoons of the court appears. The portraits of dwarves initially - Francisco Lezcano (1637), with the childish face, Sebastián de Morra (1644), with the direct and penetrating glance, El Primo, of the same year, reassuring and poignant image, or finally, the Portrait of dwarf with a dog (1650), where the worlds of the child, the adult and the fantastic one mix with the greatest naturalness -, traced with a kind of impassive naturalism, say the banality and the strangeness of the daily newspaper of the court of Spain. As for the buffoons - Juan Calabazas, Don Juan de Austria or Castañeda -, magnificiently represented in foot in rich colors, they are impressed of a balance, a decency and a reserve which moderate the glance naturalist related to them.
One knows little about the relations between Vélasquez and his contemporary painters; if there were certainly competition, the character of Vélasquez was not touched by it. Thus in 1642, for the Murillo young person, who arrives at Madrid, it is Vélasquez which obtains an authorization to copy paintings of the royal palace. One also knows it in charge of a very active workshop, because its official loads imply the execution of many copies of its works, in particular of the royal portraits intended to be offered in various the courses European.
The second voyage in Italy Within the framework of its functions at the court, Vélasquez is seen entrusting by the king a mission in Italy, in order to acquire of works of first order. The disgrace of the count-duke of Olivares, in 1643, had not indeed at all started the confidence granted to the artist by the king, that Vélasquez accompanies in 1648 to Thirty to accommodate the future queen Marie-Anne.
It is at the time of this voyage which it draws one of the rare landscapes that one knows of him - apart from a Sight of Saragossa (1647) -, the Cathedral of Grenade. Vélasquez visits Modena, Parma, Bologna - where it can admire works of Corrège -, Florence and Rome. It remains in Naples a great month before finding Rome, where it is delayed in 1650. At the time of this stay, it paints the portrait of the pope Innocent X, extremely admired but discussed. The pope himself shows himself some very satisfied, however Vélasquez will refuse any remuneration for this fabric, asserting which he is the envoy of king d' Espagne. For any wages, it will thus receive a gold chain and a medal, which will be illustrated on its tomb stone. The agreements of reds and the very free invoice, where Boschini will see “the true Venetian key”, will ensure the celebrity of the table, which will be copied multiple times. Thus in England Reynolds, in particular, and, to the XX E century, Francis Bacon will carry out some rather free variations.
The painter, who had acquired the previous year of the fabrics of Tintoret and Véronèse, does not hasten to continue these purchases and is long in returning to Madrid. The king impatient and urges his ambassador at the Holy See to press the return of Vélasquez. On its side, this one is concerned with obtain some honors and requests the decoration of the military order of Spain, supported in that by the Holy See, content with its services. It is probably towards 1650 that Vélasquez paints famous Venus with the mirror preserved at the National Gallery. The following year, it is always in Rome. It does not ignore therefore the building sites in progress in Buen Retiro, and calls the young person Francisco de Zurbarán to replace Diego de Lucena, his pupil, who has just died.
Last years On June 23rd, 1651, the painter is finally of return. The following year, the king names it, against the general opinion, large marshal of the palate. Having lent oath on on March 8th, 1652, it carries out face its service near the king - decoration of the principal vault of the church San Jose, decoration of the balconies of Plaza Mayor, but also management of cloths of the royal pound - and a well structured family life, of which it manages with meticulousness increasing prosperity: it Marie her Inés grand-daughter, whom he equips liberally; in 1654, his/her father-in-law dies by bequeathing the totality of his goods to his daughter Juana, “muxer of Diego Velázquez de Silva”. Meanwhile, always within the framework of its mission of decorator of the apartments of the king, it acquires in Rome of the sculptures and large porphyry vases.
In 1656, Vélasquez carries out a table which, a long time known under the title “the Royal family”, Ménines in 1843 will be called. It constitutes, with the Ropemaking machines (1657), the quintessence of the work of the painter and of its reflection on its Article the fabric will exert a true fascination. Théophile Gautier, seeing only one cubic in prospect there, will be written: “Where is the table? ”; but Luca Giordano exclaims: “It is the theology of painting.” Vélasquez was represented painting the royal couple, which it fixes of the glance. But the couple exists only by the reflection that a mirror returns from there: the king and the queen are located apart from the table, placed behind the spectator, around whose space is closed again thus, making him lose any reference mark. This table did not cease inspiring the painters (Picasso, inter alia, will compose on its topic, in 1959, a series of variations) and nourishing the reflection of the historians of art like philosophers.
Less known than Ménines, the fabric the Ropemaking machines however is also regarded as the top of the art of the painter from Seville. First of all, the argument appears simple: the table offers a scene of the manufacture of carpet of Santa Isabel, in Madrid, with in the foreground of the ropemaking machines and the second a tapestry on the topic of Arachné admired by three women. However, the subtle complexity of the bonds which link the two plans leave the way open to multiple interpretations, sometimes contradictory. Vélasquez made profitable its voyages in Italy, but it transmutes the lessons learned by simplicity and spontaneousness from its execution. If the assumptions of political reading founded on elements of a repertory of the symbols and allegories to the use of the artists, the Iconology (1593) of the Cesare Ripa Italian, do not seem to be able to hold the attention, the subtle network woven between the argument drawn from the Metamorphoses of Ovide and reality reveals on the other hand the power evocative of the painter and translated for a meditation deepened on its Article the painter, who chose to represent the moment when all the women arrive of Lydie to admire marvellous fabric of Arachné assisted of Minerve, thus said the parabola of artistic creation.
Concurrently to this intellectual approach, this table reveals the developments in the technology of Vélasquez: the broad beaches of colors which carve the forms succeeded of the pictorial effects of pointillist type which will make exclaim in Delacroix: “Here what I sought so a long time, this pasted firm and yet molten.”
Continuing indefatigably its dream of social rise, Vélasquez harmoniously interferes its career with the court and its activity painter. It engages finally on the way of the reconquest of the family nobility, and, from Oporto to Seville, search of the certificates of nobility. In 1658, it ends up obtaining, once again thanks to the king, the title of chancellor about Santiago, and adds on its chest the cross of the Order in Ménines, completed two years before.
In 1660, the painter is charged to decorate the residence with the island with Pheasants for the meeting with the Marie-Therese infante and Louis XIV. But in July, he falls ill and dies shortly after; one week later, Juana also died. In the inventory of their goods, the library, with its 156 volumes (what, at the time, is considerable), occupies a particular place and makes it possible to have an idea of the culture of the painter. Concurrently to guides of voyage, some titles are raised: the Symmetry of the human body To last, the Anatomy of Vésale, the Geometry and Mathematics of Euclide, the Architecture of Vitruve, the Iconology of Scraped. Palladio, Flat-bottom, Serlio, Alberti, Vasari appear all in this library, which primarily seems work tools, ultimate testimony of the uninterrupted labor undertaken by Vélasquez as of the ten years age, and whose his/her father-in-law will have been an attentive witness in his Arte of will pintura (1649): “As of his childhood, my son-in-law accepted this teaching. He had engaged an apprentice, a small farmer, who was used to him as model for various expressions and installations, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing, never not trying to withdraw itself from a difficulty. And it made according to him much heads with the charcoal and with the gouache on blue paper, like much of other copies according to nature, and thus it acquired this safety of hand for the portrait.”