II
THE PAINTER'S EARLY DAYS
In the years when Velazquez first saw the light, the power of Spain, despite the shock it had received from British seamen, was the dominating factor in European politics. Philip II. had come to the end of a reign of more than forty years; Philip III. had just reached the throne. The painter was not born in the atmosphere of court life, but in the very Catholic city of Seville, then as now a fatal place for those who cannot withstand the manifold temptations to lead a lazy life. Happily for the boy his parents had not inherited the Seville traditions; his father came from Oporto, which, being a seaport town, has no lack of mental and physical activity. The spirit of painting settled at a very early age upon young Diego de Silva Velazquez—the second name by which he is universally known belonged to his mother's family—almost before he was in his teens he was working in the studio of Francisco de Herrera, architect and painter. The temperaments of master and pupil could not fuse; there was sufficient trouble to lead Don Juan Rodriguez to transfer his son's services to Francesco Pacheco, painter, poet, professor, and withal a man of action and experience. He knew much about contemporary art, encouraged a hopeful outlook upon life, and enjoyed the respect of all men. Moreover his studio was the meeting-place for many of the distinguished folk of the city. In the very early years of their association Pacheco understood that his young pupil was not like other lads, that he possessed an individuality that could not be repressed or directed into the usual channels, and instead of resenting this new element, he sought to direct it wisely and kindly, thereby laying Velazquez under a debt of gratitude that the painter never repudiated. Indeed there were stronger ties in the making, for in the spring of 1618, when the young artist was on the threshold of his wonderful career, Pacheco gave him his daughter Juana for wife, "encouraged," he says, "by his virtues, his fine qualities, and the hopes which his happy nature and great talent raised in me." The kind old painter is not remembered to-day by his pictures, or even by his "Book of Portraits of Illustrious Personages," and other quaintly titled works from his pen. He lives because he helped to make Velazquez a great painter, and recorded his impression of his son-in-law's earliest works, the various "Bodegones," of which several may be seen in London to-day. Others are in Berlin and St. Petersburg. From these pictures of the secular life Velazquez passed to religious subjects—"Christ in the House of Martha" (National Gallery) and the "Adoration of the Magi" (Prado) belong to these early years.
PLATE III.—THE INFANTE PHILIP PROSPER
This picture hangs in the Imperial Gallery of Vienna. It is the work of the painter's last period, and shows us the little son of Philip IV. by his second wife. The lad died some two years after the picture was painted; it has been restored, not too cleverly.
In 1622, Velazquez, already the father of two children, made his first journey to Madrid, and was allowed to visit the royal palaces. He did not stay long in Castile, and his return to the capital was brought about by the divinity that shapes men's ends. Philip III. was dead; his son Philip IV. had selected as friend and adviser the Count Olivarez, son of the Governor of the Alcazar in Seville. Olivarez had many friends in the city that wears the "Modo" for its badge, in recognition of unswerving loyalty to Alfonso the Learned. Doubtless he had heard about the work of the young painter and had seen some examples of it, and he wished to strengthen himself in the capital by bringing accomplished men from his own city to official posts in Madrid. So he sent for Velazquez, who journeyed a second time to the north, now in the company of Pacheco, and on arrival there painted a lost portrait of a Gentleman Usher, Fonseca by name. This picture did for Velazquez what the portrait of Admiral Keppel did for Reynolds, and before the excitement died away, the young King Philip IV. had deigned to promise a sitting to the clever Sevillian. The success of the first picture of Philip IV. (apparently the early one now in the Prado) was so complete that the king ordered all existing portraits of himself to be removed from the palace, and gave the painter an order of admission to his service with a salary of about two pounds five shillings a month! Under the skilled hands of the artist we are permitted to see the tall, gloomy lad grow up a dull, reserved man, and we read in his face a part at least of the causes of Spain's ultimate downfall.