Other Van Dycks are: "The Blessed Herman Joseph," "Lords Digby and Russell," "Lord Wharton," "Countess Folkestone," and "William Prince of Orange."
XLI
VELASQUEZ (DIEGO RODRIGUEZ DE SILVA)
(Pronounced Vay-lahs'keth)
Castilian School
1599-1669
Pupil of Herrera
It is pretty difficult to find out why a man was named so-and-so in the days of the early Italian and Spanish painters. More likely than not they would be called after the master to whom they had been first apprenticed; or after their trade; after the town from which they came, and rarely because their father had had the name before them. In Velasquez's case, he was named after his mother.
No one seemed to be certain what to call him, but he generally wrote his name "Diego de Silva Velasquez." His father was Rodriguez de Silva, a lawyer, but in calling the boy Velasquez the family followed a universal Spanish custom of naming children after their mothers.
Little Velasquez was well taught in his childhood; he studied many languages and philosophy, for he was intended to be a lawyer or something learned, anything but a painter. The disappointment of parents in those days, when they found a child was likely to become an artist is touching.
Despite his equipment for a useful life, according to the ideas of his parents, this little chap was bound to become nothing but a maker of pictures.
Herrera was a bad-tempered master and little Velasquez could not get on with him, so after a year of harsh treatment, he went to another master, Pacheco, but by that time he had learned a secret that was to help make his work great. Herrera had taught him to use a brush with very long bristles, which had the effect of spreading the paint, making it look as if his "colours had floated upon the canvas," in a way that was the "despair of those who came after him."