Diego Velázquez

Spanish painter

• Born: June 6, 1599 (baptized)
• Birthplace: Seville, Spain
• Died: August 6, 1660
• Place of death: Madrid, Spain

In his role as court painter to King Philip IV, Velázquez produced a series of masterly works that made him the preeminent artist in his native Spain and one of the greatest painters of the entire Baroque era in Europe.

Early Life

Diego Velázquez (DYAY-goh vay-LAHZ-kayz) was born the eldest of the seven children of Juan Rodriguez de Silva and Jerónima Velázquez. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he was baptized on June 6, undoubtedly shortly after his birth. As was commonplace among many Spaniards, Diego adopted his mother’s surname. His family belonged to the hidalgo class, the lowest order of Spanish nobility.

A bright boy and an excellent student, Velázquez received the Humanistic education typical for boys of his class; yet he early demonstrated a proclivity for a career in painting, considered a respectable vocation for the scion of a hidalgo family. Seville had a flourishing community of painters, and his parents encouraged their son’s aspirations. In 1611, they apprenticed him to Francisco Pacheco, one of Seville’s leading artists, although his training had possibly begun a year earlier under Francisco de Herrera, the Elder. Pacheco agreed to provide his charge with room, board, and clothing and to train him as both a painter and a gentleman. Pacheco’s workshop provided a fertile atmosphere for the development of Velázquez’s talents. Pacheco had a strong interest in the humanities, and poets, scholars, and public officials often gathered at his workshop to discuss the arts. Pacheco provided rigorous instruction in drawing for all of his students, but he allowed the young Velázquez considerable freedom to develop his own unique style.

Having passed the qualifying examination, Velázquez gained admission to the local painters’ guild on March 14, 1617. This authorized him to have his own studio and accept commissions. The following year, on April 23, 1618, he married Pacheco’s daughter Juana. Within three years, the young couple had two daughters, but only the elder, Francisca, survived infancy.

Of the approximately twenty paintings by Velázquez that have survived from his early period (1617-1621), the most distinctive are bodegones, a unique form of Spanish still life depicting ordinary people engaged in mundane activities involving food and drink. These works demonstrated Velázquez’s concern for careful attention to composition and detail and utilized dramatic lighting reminiscent of the Italian baroque master Caravaggio.

Had Velázquez chosen to remain in Seville, he could undoubtedly have become the city’s preeminent painter and enjoyed a lucrative career accepting commissions from local churches. Yet he already clearly preferred secular art to religious art and had ambitions for advancement that could be achieved only at the royal court in Madrid. In April, 1622, he left Seville for the capital, ostensibly to view the famous collection of art at El Escorial Palace; yet he also had aspirations to paint Spain’s new sovereign, Philip IV .

Life’s Work

The dominant figure at Philip’s court for the first two decades of his reign was Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimental, the count-duke of Olivares, who had many close friends in Seville, including Pacheco. During his initial visit, Velázquez failed to win a commission to paint Philip, but he won favorable attention with his portrait of the poet Luis de Góngora y Argote . In the spring of 1623, following the death of the king’s favorite painter, Olivares summoned Velázquez to Madrid. The young artist’s subsequent portrait of the king’s chaplain, Juan de Fonseca, won for him widespread praise at court and gained for him the opportunity to paint Philip. This royal portrait, now lost, was so favorably received that Olivares immediately invited Velázquez to move to Madrid permanently. He also decreed that in the future no one else would be permitted to paint the king. Velázquez formally entered royal service on October 6, 1623. For the remaining thirty-seven years of his life, his fortunes were closely tied to Philip and his court.

Velázquez’s sudden rise aroused the jealousy of more established court painters, but he firmly entrenched his position by defeating three of his elder rivals in a 1627 competition for a painting based on the theme of the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. The king rewarded Velázquez with the post of Usher of the Chamber, the first of many such favors he bestowed on his favorite painter over the years.

In 1627, Philip permitted Velázquez to travel to Italy, still the paramount place for artistic education during the seventeenth century. After initial visits to Genoa, Milan, Venice, and certain other cities, Velázquez settled for nearly a year in Rome. While there, he eagerly studied and sketched many works of the great masters and also painted several canvases of his own, including The Bloody Cloak of Joseph (1630), his only known work on an Old Testament theme. This initial Italian sojourn influenced Velázquez’s style by inducing him to use freer brush strokes and lighter colors.

Upon his return to Madrid in January, 1631, Velázquez found many commissions awaiting him. Among the earliest was a portrait of the new heir to the throne, Prince Baltasar Carlos, born during Velázquez’s absence in Italy. Among the major projects that occupied his time in the 1630’s was his role in the decoration of the Buen Retiro, the newly built royal palace in Madrid. By late 1635, he had completed three masterful paintings for its Hall of Realms—equestrian portraits of Philip and Baltasar Carlos and The Surrender of Breda (1634-1635), a grand, life-size canvas that celebrated a Spanish military victory against the Dutch in 1625. Soon afterward, Velázquez became preoccupied with the redecoration of Philip’s hunting lodge known as the Torre de la Parada. In addition to selecting paintings by other artists to hang in its rooms, Velázquez also painted six major works for the lodge, including life-size hunting portraits of Philip, Baltasar Carlos, and the king’s brother Ferdinand.

Velázquez’s works for the Buen Retiro and Torre de la Parada cemented his position as the nation’s leading artist and resulted in his continued advancement at court. Throughout these years, he retained the king’s favor and carefully avoided becoming entangled in the complex world of court politics. Philip expressed his confidence in his favorite artist by naming him a Gentleman of the Wardrobe in 1634 and promoting him to Gentleman of the Bedchamber in 1643. Later in the same year, he appointed Velázquez Assistant Superintendent of Works, which empowered Velázquez to oversee Philip’s numerous building projects. Despite his royal offices and commissions, Velázquez’s salary was frequently in arrears; yet throughout this period the king allowed him to supplement his wages by accepting commissions from private individuals.

In 1649, the king permitted Velázquez to make a second trip to Italy, principally to purchase paintings and sculptures for a new gallery in the Alcázar Palace. Velázquez arrived in Genoa in March, 1649, and remained in Italy for more than two years, stimulated by the artistic company and the freedom to paint whom he pleased. He again spent the majority of his time in Rome, where he was an honored guest at the papal court. His most famous painting from this period was a portrait of Pope Innocent X. In gratitude for this work, the pontiff presented Velázquez with a gold medallion bearing Innocent’s portrait. Velázquez’s fellow artists in Rome also honored him in January, 1650, by electing him to membership in the Academy of Saint Luke.

After returning to Madrid, Velázquez soon achieved a more exalted position at court when Philip chose him over several rivals in 1652 for the post of royal chamberlain. This office brought Velázquez a greatly augmented salary and rent-free apartments in the treasury house adjoining the Alcázar Palace. The post also entailed time-consuming responsibilities that decreased his opportunities to paint. He found himself in charge of the decoration of all royal palaces, the upkeep of their furnishings, and the supervision of all arrangements for the king’s visits around the country.

During this final decade of his life, Velázquez continued to paint numerous portraits of the royal family, including the innovative Las Meninas (1656), considered by many to be his masterpiece. In 1658, the king nominated him for the Order of Santiago, one of the nation’s three great orders of knighthood. After securing a papal brief waiving the necessity of proving noble ancestry on both sides, Velázquez was formally admitted to the order on November 28, 1659.

Velázquez’s last known works were portraits of the aging monarch’s two children by his second marriage, the Infanta Margarita and her sickly younger brother, Prince Philip Prospero. He devoted his last months to the time-consuming preparations for the marriage of the king’s elder daughter Maria Teresa to Louis XIV of France, which occurred in April, 1660, on the Franco-Spanish border. Only three months after returning to Madrid from these festivities, Velázquez fell ill from a fever while attending his sovereign at court. Despite the efforts of royal physicians, he died within a week, on August 6, 1660. Clad in the costume of the Order of Santiago, the king’s favorite painter was buried the following night at services attended by numerous nobles and court officials. His wife of forty-two years died a mere week after her husband.

Significance

During an active career spanning more than four decades, Velázquez established himself as the premier artist of the Golden Age of Spanish painting, as well as one of the most significant painters of the baroque era. Unlike contemporaries such as Rembrandt in the Netherlands, Velázquez very early in his life secured a generous lifelong patron who provided him with financial security and creative opportunities to demonstrate his genius. With the exception of Peter Paul Rubens , no other artist better personified the genre of aristocratic baroque painting.

For such a long career, Velázquez’s known output was relatively meager. Only some 120 of his 162 known paintings have survived. His output declined as his duties as a courtier increased. One of the great ironies of Velázquez’s career is that the royal patronage that afforded him the opportunities to achieve lasting fame also demanded great amounts of his time for pursuits other than painting. Although best known for his penetrating royal portraits, Velázquez dealt with a wide variety of subjects in his paintings, including bodegones, religious works, mythological studies, and a moving series of works depicting royal dwarfs and jesters. He was the only significant Spanish painter of his era to devote himself mainly to secular subject matter.

Velázquez founded no great school of painters. His closest follower was his son-in-law, Juan Bautista del Mazo, who succeeded him as court painter but failed to achieve his greatness. Velázquez’s works did have a significant impact on artists of subsequent centuries, especially the Romantic painter Francisco de Goya, the realist Gustave Courbet, and the Impressionist Édouard Manet.

Bibliography

Brown, Dale. The World of Velázquez, 1599-1660. New York: Time-Life Books, 1969. Emphasizes Velázquez’s life and career in relation to the Spain of Philip IV. Includes lavish color illustrations and a brief bibliography.

Brown, Jonathan, and Carmen Garrido. Velázquez: The Technique of Genius. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998. An introduction to Velázquez’s paintings, primarily the works housed at Museo del Prado in Madrid. Garrido, head of technical services at the Prado, includes in this work photographed details of the paintings to accompany Brown’s text.

Harris, Enriqueta. Velázquez. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982. Contains a well-written survey of Velázquez’s life and works, and two valuable appendices. The first appendix is a translation of Pacheco’s study of his son-in-law’s early career, found in his 1649 Arte de la pintura; the second appendix is an eighteenth century biography by court painter Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco.

Kahr, Madlyn Millner. Velázquez: The Art of Painting. New York: Harper & Row, 1976. Discusses Velázquez’s life with a particular emphasis on his masterpiece, Las Meninas. Includes nearly one hundred black-and-white illustrations and a useful bibliography.

López-Rey, José. Velázquez: A Catalogue Raisonné of His Oeuvre, with an Introductory Study. London: Faber & Faber, 1963. After initially surveying the artist’s life, this lavishly illustrated book devotes chapters to the various types of paintings he produced during his lengthy career. Also useful for its illustrated chronological catalog of more than one hundred extant Velázquez works.

Sérullaz, Maurice. Velázquez. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985. A volume from the Library of Great Painters series, this study includes an interpretative introductory essay and a chapter on Velázquez’s drawings. Particularly useful are the forty-eight color plates with accompanying explanations and a chronological survey of the major events in Velázquez’s life.

Stratton-Pruitt, Suzanne L. The Cambridge Companion to Velázquez. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Collection of essays on various aspects of seventeenth century life and art, including a review of critical literature about Velázquez, becoming a seventeenth century artist, Velázquez and Italy, and the relation of painting, theater, and the visual arts at the Spanish court.

Wolf, Norbert. Diego Velázquez, 1599-1660: The Face of Spain. Cologne, Germany: Taschen, 1999. Intersperses commentary by Wolf, an art historian, with numerous illustrations of Velázquez’s work.