Diego Velázquez
1599 -1660
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, commonly referred to as Diego Velázquez, was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the Baroque period, important as a portrait artist.
Velázquez was born in 1599 in Seville. Velázquez have started his apprenticeship with Francisco de Herrera the Elder, but a short while later his father put him with Francisco Pacheco, who was a tolerant teacher and a man of society. At this time, Velazquez became familiar with the school of Caravaggio.
In 1617, Velázquez was accepted into the painters' guild of St. Luke in Seville. The same year Velázquez married Juana. Within less than three years they had two daughters, of whom only one, Francisca, survived. The paintings executed by Velázquez in Seville before 1622 include bodegones, popular genre of kitchen scenes, in which food and drink plays the main part and his first portraits and religious compositions: "Old Woman Frying Eggs", "Three Men at Table", "The Waterseller in Seville", "Mother Jerónima de la Fuente", "The Adoration of the Magi".
In 1622, Velázquez visited Madrid for the first time to see its art treasures and to make useful contacts. Then he went to Toledo to see works by El Greco and other painters, including Pedro de Orrente and Juan Sanchez Cotan. In the spring of 1623, Velázquez was summoned to court by the powerful Prime Minister, Count-Duke of Olivares, and received his first commission for a portrait of Philip IV. The success of this picture brought the artist an appointment as court painter and the privilege of becoming the only artist permitted to paint the king in the future. In 1628, Peter Paul Rubens came to the court in Madrid on diplomatic business. Velázquez often visited him at work.
During his first journey to Italy in 1629-30, Velázquez visited Genoa, Venice where he saw the work of Titian, who affected him more strongly than any other artist, Florence, and Rome, where he stayed for almost a year. He copied old masters.
In 1834-35, Velázquez was working on the decoration of the new palace of Buen Retino. One of his major works is "The Surrender of Breda", part of a cycle of twelve battle pictures by different painters. The work was soon popularly renamed "The Lances", because of the verticals which seemed to express the peaceful halt of the army at the moment of surrender. It has been considered the best historical work in West European painting.
In 1636, the king appointed his court painter "Assistant to the Wardrobe". In the next few years Velázquez' art approached its peak in such pictures as "Venus at her Mirror" and "The Fable of Arachne". During his second visit to Rome, Velázquez painted the famous portrait of Pope Innocent X, which the pope himself declared to be 'too truthful'. Velasquez's career ended with his most significant work "Las Meninas". The painting is a multiple portrait of the royal family and court. The principal figure with all the power of her mischievous charm, is the little Infant Margarita, who has burst into Velasquez's studio, followed by her ladies, dwarfs and dogs, in a flurry of skirts, cloaks and ribbons, while he was intent on painting the king and queen, whose only images are visible, reflected in the mirror hanging on the wall in the background, where two large mythological paintings, one by Rubens, the other by Jordaens, are also hanging.
The great master died in the palace in Madrid, 1660.
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