VELÁZQUEZ, DIEGO RODRIGUEZ DE SILVA y. –
Painter, b. in Seville on 6 June 1599 and d. in Madrid
on 7 Aug. 1660.
A pupil of the colorist and realist Francisco de Herrera the Elder and subsequently of his father-in-law Francisco Pacheco, V. soon achieved success and honors in Madrid and, after the portrait of Philip II, was appointed court painter, a position he held for approximately 40 years. During a first journey to Italy (1629–31), he visited Genoa, Milan, Venice, Loreto, with long stays in Rome and Naples; in Ferrara he left Cardinal Legate Giulio Sacchetti a self-portrait of his (Galleria Capitolina), in Cento he established useful stylistic contacts with Guercino, and in Naples he executed a fine replica of his famous painting The Drinkers (Museo naz.). During a subsequent journey to Italy (1649–51), V. painted the celebrated portrait of Innocent X (Galleria Doria in Rome) and two highly singular views of the Villa Medici, which anticipated Impressionist modes. The dominant prerogative in this master’s exceptional pictorial temperament is the uninterrupted and flowing realistic vein, to which the study and assimilation of the styles of Rubens and of the direct Italian Caravaggists, such as G. B. Caracciolo and Borgianni, undoubtedly contributed, but even more so his love of the Venetians of the sixteenth century, above all Titian, whose congenial follower V. may in many respects be called. Three successive and evolutionary phases have been distinguished in his production: the first, youthful, extending to about the age of thirty, culminating in the aforementioned Drinkers (or Triumph of Bacchus) in the Prado and in the Crucifixion in the same Museum; the second, spanning the five-year period 1634–39, in which the most prestigious portraits, executed at the Madrid court, emerge, including those of the buffoons, the panoramic Boar-Hunting Party (National Gallery, London), and The Surrender of Breda or The Lances (Prado Museum); the third, beginning in 1640, which boasts other highly characteristic works, such as the figures of Aesop, Menippus, and several dwarfs, the picaresque scene Mercury and Argus, and the more complex works The Spinners and Las Meninas (all in the Prado Museum). But chronology has relatively little importance in V.’s work. More useful for defining the nature of his creative activity is an examination of the attitudes and means assumed by his deeply rooted, integral realism, not only in direct contact with everyday reality, but also in courtly or celebratory contexts, in the historical sphere, and within the realm of sacred narrative. If at times, as in The Forge of Vulcan (Prado Museum), V. proves little suited to elevating anatomical and environmental observations to the level of myth, in almost all the subjects proposed to him or chosen by his sure instinct as a poet of color, he displays a versatility and transfiguring capacity that have few parallels in universal art from Giotto onward. This may explain how, despite a lack of inclination toward the transcendent and asceticism, some of his religious works rank among the highest achievements of the European seventeenth century, without the slightest trace of Baroque spirit. In addition to the Crucifixion mentioned above, with the face half concealed by the falling hair, there are the Adoration of the Shepherds and Christ at the Column (both in the National Gallery, London), the Coronation of the Virgin, and the Conversation of St. Anthony and St. Paul the Hermit (both in the Prado Museum). – Vedi tav. CXX.