The Story of Spanish Painting

by Charles H. Caffin

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.

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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.