WEBVTT

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"Las Meninas", Diego Velasquez's portrait
of a Spanish princess and her entourage

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is one of (if not THE) most widely
discussed painting in Western Art.

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Every viewing raises more questions

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and every answer is followed
by a dense network of meanings.

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It is not only a high point
of realism in painting,

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a perfect lifelike depiction
of the Spanish Court,

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it is also a complex meditation
on painting itself.

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It is a spellbinding work

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that is concerned 
with how we view a painting,

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and how the subjects
in a painting view us.

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Velasquez was 57 years old
when he painted this,

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and had been the court painter
for over 30 years.

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But in this painting
— for the first time —

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he includes himself among the courtiers,

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painting a monumental canvas
10 and 1/2 feet tall by 9 feet wide,

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the same size as the actual painting
that the painted canvas is shown within.

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But who is he painting?

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The infanta? 
The king and queen of Spain?

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Or is he painting you, looking at him?

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Early in his career, Velasquez produced

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several of these "kitchen" 
or "tavern" scenes,

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known in Spanish as "bodegones".

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They showed ordinary people
in ordinary settings,

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often with hidden allegorical meaning.

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When he was just 18, 
he painted this extraordinary work,

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which shows a precocious talent

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for capturing the everyday moment

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and clearly shows his immense skill

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in depicting different
materials and textures,

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as well as his mastery of light and shadow

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on both opaque and reflective 
surfaces.

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The detail of the eggs 
frying in hot oil is a masterclass.

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This painting which was probably
painted to show off his skills,

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became his calling card 
to the Royal Palace.

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Here, the water dripping down the jug

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demonstrates his astonishing ability

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to create an almost photographic reality.

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Common people were always
treated with dignity by the artist

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and his early paintings not only showed

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a supremely confident
technique and attention to detail,

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he gave workers
a gravitas in his paintings.

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Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez
was born in 1599 in Seville,

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to a family with plenty of intellect
but little financial means.

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Precocious talented, 
he began a six-year apprenticeship

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when 
he was 12 years old,

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with the painter Francisco Pacheco,

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learning classical techniques of painting.

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But the young artist quickly moved away
from Pacheco's old-fashioned stiff style,

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towards a new dramatic naturalism

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inspired by Caravaggio and his followers.

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There is no evidence he saw
Caravaggio's work in person,

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but he knew the work of Pieter Aertsen,
a Dutch painter

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accredited with the invention
of the monumental genre scene,

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which combines still life 
and genre painting,

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and often includes 
a biblical scene in the background,

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almost like a split screen effect.

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Velasquez painted several 
of these types of scenes,

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and he is clearly already
experimenting with illusion,

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with the picture within a picture,

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something he will perfect later
in Las Meninas.

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In 1623, two years after Philip IV

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came to the throne in Spain 
at the age of 16,

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Velasquez, who was already being 
talked about in the right circles,

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was summoned to Madrid 
to paint a portrait of the king

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which we think is this one.

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It was an immediate success

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and he was pronounced 
official painter to the king on the spot,

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with a promise that no one else should
portray the king without his permission,

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a remarkable achievement
for such a young man,

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and one which awakened jealousy
from the other court painters.

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Philipe IV of Spain and Velasquez 
were linked together

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like no other patronage in Art History.

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He first painted him at the age of 24

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and 33 years later

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this painting would 
be his last of the king.

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Their relationship was unusually close
for a monarch and his painter,

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and the king often came to Velasquez

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while he was painting in his workshop
— just for a quick chat.

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It has been said

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that the principal motivating force
in Velasquez's life,

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was the desire to be a nobleman,

NOTE Paragraph

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and he would remain
attached to the court

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for the rest of his life,

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where step by step he would ascend

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through the hierarchy
of court appointments,

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working his way up to a knighthood,

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and he used Las Maninas to prove 
that he should be considered as a noble.

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At the same time 
he is painting his masterpiece,

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a committee are deciding

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whether he can be made a knight
of the order of Santiago,

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in other words be ennobled.

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There is a reason he has put himself
in one of his paintings for the first time

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— on an equal footing
with Spanish royalty.

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It is so important to understand

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that a painter in 17th century 
Spain and elsewhere,

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was considered as just another
crafts person, like a carpenter,

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in other words, a manual worker.

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And like most most court painters
he had many other jobs.

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Velasquez was also 
the "Royal Chamberlain",

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a job that involved 
looking after the palace,

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buying firewood, 
bedding, and crockery.

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He had a key to every room in the palace

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and we can see here,
hanging from the painters belt,

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the symbolic keys
of his court offices

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of which he was inordinately proud.

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He was also the curator
of the king's galleries,

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responsible for negotiating 
the purchase of hundreds of works.

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In fact, almost every Titian
you see today in the Prado,

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was bought by Velasquez, 
on trips to Italy.

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The artist had a long life,

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but only produced 
between 110 and 120 known canvases.

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He produced no etchings or engravings

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and only a few drawings 
are attributed to him.

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This all ties into his two enormous,
but mutually exclusive, ambitions.

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He wanted to be seen

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as the greatest painter 
of the Spanish court

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but he also wanted to go down
in History as a great gentleman.

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The problem was that throughout
his time in the palace,

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his close friendship with the king

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meant he had 
his enemies in the court,

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who were determined 
to stop his rise through the ranks.

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Philipe became king in 1621 
at the age of 16

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and heir to the Hapsburg 
art collection in Madrid.

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In a court that commissioned

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not only paintings 
but poetry and theatre too,

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we often talk about
the "Golden Age of Spain",

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and it was a time 
when great palaces were being built

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and culture was flourishing, 
with among others:

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El Greco, Velasquez, Zurbaran, 
Murillo and Cervantes.

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But Philip IV was in trouble
for much of his rule,

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mainly because of long drawn out 
expensive wars, revolts, revolutions,

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and trouble in the colonies.

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But also because 
of genetics and inbreeding.

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For two centuries, the Habsburg kings

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had married first cousins,
nieces and aunts,

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resulting in an onslaught of physical 
and mental ailments

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because of their limited gene pool.

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The distinctive "Habsburg jaw" 
we see on Philip IV

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was inherited from earlier Habsburgs,

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and likely the result 
of the Royal Family's inbreeding.

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Despite the Spanish Colonial Empire,

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the country was almost continuously
in financial difficulties,

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and had declared bankruptcies
in 1647 and 1653.

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The Spanish royal family 
was so broke

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that they often couldn't afford 
firewood to heat the palace,

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or bread for the tables.

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In fact, when Velasquez died,

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the crown still owed him 
17 years of salary payments.

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And yet, what does Las Meninas portray?

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A wealthy family dressed
in the finest clothes money can buy

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surrounded 
by gloriously attired servants

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in an ornate and sumptuous setting.

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Like all royal portraiture, 
it is a form of propaganda

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designed to show a courtly audience,
dynastic stability and Imperial wealth.

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But one thing Philip IV can't disguise
is the lack of a male heir.

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He is on his second marriage
by the time of this painting.

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He had 10 children with his first wife, 
Isabelle de Bourbon,

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but only one son and heir.

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His wife died in 1644.

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And then in 1646, their son died.

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A year later, in a hurry 
to create a new son and heir,

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he married his 14-year-old niece, Marianna
— when he was 44.

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She gave him five children,
but only two survived to adulthood.

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A daughter, Margarita Theresa, 
born in 1651,

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the infanta in Las Meninas,
who sadly would die in her teens,

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and the future king Charles II of Spain

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who was born 5 years after Las Meninas.

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Charles however, 
was severely disabled,

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thanks to inbreeding,

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and he would be the last
of the Spanish Habsburgs.

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Velasquez's position at the court

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gave him unique access
to the royal collections,

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and he would naturally be influenced
by the works he saw every day.

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He also visited Italy at least twice,

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on extended trips 
to buy paintings for Philipe IV,

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and to study the great masters.

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He was accompanied on these trips
by his enslaved assistant,

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a notable painter in his own right, 
Juan de Pareja,

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who would be given
his freedom by Velasquez

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shortly after he painted this beautiful 
and dignified portrait in 1650.

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The work's extraordinary lifelike quality
so astonished the papal court,

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that he was asked to paint Pope Innocent X

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one of the painter's best 
and most psychologically insightful works,

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which has been described 
as "a symphony in red".

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It is said that when the pope saw
his portrait completed,

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he exclaimed somewhat bewildered:

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"Troppo Vero" - "too truthful".

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The influence of contemporary 
Italian artists, can be seen

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in Velasquez's mastery of perspective,

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and his rendering of the male nude
in this large canvas,

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he painted while in Rome.

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It was Titian and Peter Paul Rubens,

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who would have more influence
than any other artist

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on the development of his style,

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and in particular his royal portraits,

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where, in some cases, 
we can clearly see

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stylistic similarities
between the great masters.

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This early Titian painting hung
in the Spanish Royal Palace

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when Philip IV came to power

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and was used as the standard

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by which all other royal equestrian
portraits would be judged.

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And this spectacular life-sized
equestrian portrait by Velasquez

NOTE Paragraph

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of Philip IV clearly influenced 
by Titian and Rubens,

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not only in its simplicity of pose

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but also in its depiction of the King

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as a restrained and powerful ruler.

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Velasquez's portrait however is livelier,
more elegant and uses a lighter pallette,

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and doesn't rely 
on a highly charged background.

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The Flemish painter Rubens, even visited 
the Spanish court of Philip IV in 1628.

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He was actually on a diplomatic mission,

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but still managed to paint five 
portraits of Philipe,

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while he was there.

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He became great friends with Velasquez

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and encouraged him to go to Italy
to study the Italian masters

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to move away from chiaroscuro,

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to be looser in his brush work
and to adopt a brighter palette colour.

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Rubens was not only a successful painter,

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but he was also an important diplomat

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who had been knighted 
despite his humble background.

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The ambitious Velasquez 
saw Rubens as a role model,

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and through him he found someone
he could identify with.

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It was Titian's late works that inspired
both Rubens and Velasquez.

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Titian used sketchy and loosely
applied brush work,

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and he would drag and smudge
paint over the canvas

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to suggest the form, 
rather than using definitive Strokes.

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He also used a very thick
rough weave for his canvases,

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that gave texture to his surfaces.

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Velasquez would do the same.

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Maybe less well known is the influence
of Sánchez Coello and Antonis Mor,

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who were in the royal collection,

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and would also be important
to how Velasquez helped Philipe IV

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forge a calculated image
of power and piety.

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Probably the biggest influence
on Las Meninas though,

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was a painting from two centuries earlier,

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"The Arnolfini Portrait", by Jan Van Eyck,

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that I discussed in my earlier video.

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This too was 
in the collection of Philip IV,

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and Velasquez would pass it every day
on the way to his Studio.

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Like Las Meninas, the Arnolfini portrait 
also has a mirror

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positioned at the back
of the pictorial space,

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reflecting two figures who would have 
the same point of view as we do.

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It also plays with pictorial space,
reflections and illusion,

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not only in art but also in literature.

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For example, Don Quixote
by Miguel de Cervantes,

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is itself a complex multifaceted picture

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of the relationship
between reality and illusion.

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Velasquez used a very coarse canvas,

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and he didn't use many
preliminary sketches that we know of,

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but rather, he painted
directly onto the canvas.

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As we can see with these x-rays

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he often changed his work
as he was painting it,

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and these changes 
are known as "pentimento"

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Velasquez was so experienced
by the time of Las Meninas,

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that the work has very few changes,
apart from his self-portrait,

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which initially turned his head
more towards the Infanta.

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For much of his early career,

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the artist used 
a red ground for underlayer,

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good for building up 
contrast and tonal values

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- the light and the dark.

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But by the time of Las Meninas, 
he had a much looser style,

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and diluted his pigments t
o make them more translucent and fluid,

00:14:07.315 --> 00:14:09.274
and he painted quite thinly,

00:14:09.314 --> 00:14:12.747
so this necessitated using 
a neutral grey ground,

00:14:12.777 --> 00:14:15.080
which allowed 
for a much wider tonal range,

00:14:15.110 --> 00:14:18.938
greater luminosity
and a general silvery range of colour.

00:14:19.305 --> 00:14:21.070
This was unusual at the time,

00:14:21.070 --> 00:14:24.104
as most canvases were primed 
using dark colours.

00:14:24.674 --> 00:14:27.496
He would paint "alla Prima" or wet-on-wet,

00:14:27.496 --> 00:14:31.065
where layers of wet paint are applied 
to existing layers of wet paint,

00:14:31.065 --> 00:14:34.050
often finishing his paintings
in one session.

00:14:34.135 --> 00:14:36.411
With a painting
of this size and complexity,

00:14:36.411 --> 00:14:38.051
that would not be possible,

00:14:38.061 --> 00:14:41.176
and we can see one example
in the Infanta's sleeve,

00:14:41.176 --> 00:14:43.431
where although it is mostly wet-on-wet,

00:14:43.444 --> 00:14:47.094
areas of highlights have been dabbed 
on later in thick impasto,

00:14:47.094 --> 00:14:48.899
to create texture.

00:14:49.014 --> 00:14:52.576
With Velazquez, you are always aware
that you are looking at paint.

00:14:52.746 --> 00:14:56.151
He doesn't try to hide his brushmarks
- quite the reverse.

00:14:56.742 --> 00:14:59.194
By the time he came round
to painting Las Meninas,

00:14:59.210 --> 00:15:02.284
his technique was 
at its freest and most fluid.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:02.864 --> 00:15:05.504
It is often called 
a precursor to Impressionism,

00:15:05.518 --> 00:15:07.345
but it's more than that.

00:15:07.375 --> 00:15:11.415
Here, the silver of the tray on which
the Menina holds the ceramic container

00:15:11.472 --> 00:15:14.248
is achieved with a couple of flicks
of white paint,

00:15:14.710 --> 00:15:17.669
and the flowers are just
a few slashes of red.

00:15:17.899 --> 00:15:22.065
We often talk about Chiaroscuro,
the extreme contrast of light and dark,

00:15:22.209 --> 00:15:24.006
when we talk about Velasquez,

00:15:24.036 --> 00:15:26.504
and comparisons 
are often made with Caravaggio.

00:15:26.754 --> 00:15:30.135
He painted his most technically
Caravaggio-like picture,

00:15:30.155 --> 00:15:32.732
"Christ after the flagellation', early on.

00:15:33.113 --> 00:15:36.742
But later, he used a more subtle 
variation of chiarascuro.

00:15:37.226 --> 00:15:40.537
Still using light to direct our vision
but more subtly.

00:15:40.627 --> 00:15:44.115
As we can see when we look
at Las Maninas in greyscale.

00:15:45.153 --> 00:15:48.362
Velasquez uses a dark colour palette
for Las Meninas,

00:15:48.457 --> 00:15:51.335
mostly neutral colours and quite limited,

00:15:51.366 --> 00:15:54.073
and yet he manages 
to get a broad range of tones

00:15:54.073 --> 00:15:58.340
with just whites, blues, yellows, 
ochres, and small touches of red,

00:15:58.618 --> 00:16:00.834
that help draw your eyes 
around the painting

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:00.834 --> 00:16:03.027
towards key points of interest.

00:16:03.499 --> 00:16:06.648
Velasquez even lets us know
which colours he used,

00:16:06.730 --> 00:16:09.538
as the palette that the painter holds
in his left hand,

00:16:09.555 --> 00:16:12.619
has the very pigments 
he used on Las Meninas.

00:16:16.727 --> 00:16:18.873
Between 1640 and 1660,

00:16:18.903 --> 00:16:21.189
Velasquez mostly painted 
single portraits.

00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:25.611
The composition and structure
of Las Meninas was extremely complicated,

00:16:25.671 --> 00:16:27.757
and with so many characters

00:16:27.767 --> 00:16:31.207
it's really like the staging of a piece 
of theatre or performance art.

00:16:31.237 --> 00:16:33.119
It needed to be carefully planned out,

00:16:33.119 --> 00:16:35.972
with every character seen,
as well as being seen.

00:16:36.126 --> 00:16:39.545
In Velasquez's hands, 
they are fully realised individuals.

00:16:40.305 --> 00:16:43.729
Thanks to the 18th century 
art historian Antonio Palamino,

00:16:43.733 --> 00:16:47.059
who wrote a 1724 book on Spanish painters,

00:16:47.174 --> 00:16:49.994
we know quite a lot 
about the people in Las Meninas,

00:16:49.994 --> 00:16:51.747
including their names.

00:16:52.019 --> 00:16:54.966
Palomino spoke to Velasquez 's colleagues
after his death,

00:16:55.066 --> 00:16:58.058
as well as four of the nine people
pictured in the painting.

00:16:58.370 --> 00:17:00.241
Most of the members of the Court

00:17:00.241 --> 00:17:02.560
are grouped around
the 5-year-old infanta,

00:17:02.560 --> 00:17:03.997
Margarita Teresa,

00:17:04.017 --> 00:17:07.660
who is attended by two "meninas"
- or maids-in-waiting.

00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:09.801
María Agustina Sarmiento,

00:17:09.811 --> 00:17:12.018
who is passing her water
in terracotta pots

00:17:12.048 --> 00:17:13.760
(so it could be summer).

00:17:13.760 --> 00:17:17.452
and Isabel de Velasco, 
who seems to be in mid-curtsy.

00:17:18.009 --> 00:17:20.540
Velasquez had painted the princess 
many times,

00:17:20.812 --> 00:17:24.362
but unfortunately she would die 
before she was out of her teens.

00:17:24.652 --> 00:17:26.572
She is in the centre of the painting,

NOTE Paragraph

00:17:26.582 --> 00:17:29.292
with the central axis
passing between her eyes.

00:17:29.592 --> 00:17:31.582
Her face is spotlit by light

00:17:31.622 --> 00:17:33.792
coming from an unseen window - top right,

00:17:33.826 --> 00:17:37.489
and her white satin dress glows
as she is bathed in the sun.

00:17:38.049 --> 00:17:39.871
It is the princess's presence

00:17:39.871 --> 00:17:42.012
that makes this a "political painting",

00:17:42.042 --> 00:17:45.656
as at the time the Infanta 
was the only child of Philipe IV,

00:17:45.726 --> 00:17:49.481
with the dynastic succession
resting on her tiny shoulders.

00:17:49.531 --> 00:17:52.334
Showing her as a healthy and beautiful princess is important for future marriage prospects.

00:17:55.294 --> 00:17:58.517
We don't know the name of the dog, but we know the breed is a Spanish Mastiff, which were bred as guard dogs.

00:18:01.527 --> 00:18:03.139
There are few artists with such skill in painting animals as Velasquez!

00:18:06.452 --> 00:18:09.418
The dog is being nudged awake by Nicolas Pertusato, an Italian dwarf and Court Jester.

00:18:12.595 --> 00:18:15.948
Next to him, is the Austrian dwarf Maria Bárbola, who is depicted in an unusual way for a person in her position at the time.

00:18:19.108 --> 00:18:21.244
People with dwarfism, were considered curiosities,

00:18:23.300 --> 00:18:26.460
as little more than "pets", but Velasquez always gave 
dignity to characters who, due to their profession or condition,

00:18:29.340 --> 00:18:30.717
we

00:18:30.717 --> 00:18:31.406
re treated as lesser beings.

00:18:32.726 --> 00:18:34.029
He shows Maria standing upright, beside the princess.

00:18:35.332 --> 00:18:38.662
She has a thoughtful and controlled expression, and is looking directly at us - or the royal couple.

00:18:42.102 --> 00:18:44.133
Velasquez entered the service of the 
18:44
palace as a royal servant

00:18:46.165 --> 00:18:48.011
and initially was considered a worker, just like the dwarves of the court,

00:18:49.761 --> 00:18:52.494
or the jesters. And so he treated them with an empathy, not seen before in Royal portraits.

00:18:55.204 --> 00:18:58.670
He never mocked them or caricatured them, and often made them the focal point, as fully fleshed out humans.

00:19:02.085 --> 00:19:04.573
In the shadows, this woman is Doña Marcela de Ulloa, the infanta's chaperone,

00:19:06.863 --> 00:19:08.667
and she is in mid-conversation with an unidentified bodyguard.

00:19:10.347 --> 00:19:12.576
At the rear is Don José Nieto Velázquez, brother of the artist,

00:19:14.886 --> 00:19:16.840
and the Queen's Chamberlain. Velasquez had possibly painted him before.

00:19:18.510 --> 00:19:20.917
He has paused at the door, pulling back the heavy exterior curtain,

00:19:23.127 --> 00:19:25.492
with one foot resting on a step while his weight 
is on his other leg on a different step.

00:19:27.712 --> 00:19:30.209
As the Queen's attendant he was required to be at hand to 
open and close doors for her.

00:19:32.349 --> 00:19:35.124
We don't know however if he is coming or going, but the light certainly 
pulls us in,

00:19:38.074 --> 00:19:41.165
and it looks as if he will usher all of us, out from the created world and into the real world.

00:19:44.501 --> 00:19:47.321
In this masterpiece of Illusion,

00:19:50.141 --> 00:19:52.636
Velasquez clearly goes beyond the physical confines of space, 
by playing with implied spaces, in this case the rest of the palace.

00:19:54.926 --> 00:19:56.883
Velasquez himself is pictured 
emerging from behind the canvas,

00:19:58.753 --> 00:20:00.682
moving into our gaze from the shadows into the light,

00:20:02.382 --> 00:20:05.101
as he looks at us in the implied space looking at him in the pictorial space.

00:20:08.001 --> 00:20:11.854
He is supremely self-confident and 
certainly no subservient courtier.

00:20:13.381 --> 00:20:16.055
He is proudly holding the tools of his trade, his Palette is 
turned towards us showing its colours

00:20:18.665 --> 00:20:21.099
he also holds a mahlstick, used for steadying the hand 
when doing close work.

00:20:23.429 --> 00:20:26.334
And the long round brushes we know he used which created soft edges rather than hard lines.

00:20:29.240 --> 00:20:31.905
His brush is dipped in paint and perhaps he is considering whether to add some finishing touches,

00:20:34.495 --> 00:20:36.697
but it is also possible that the first stroke has not yet been applied.

00:20:38.527 --> 00:20:42.044
His hand is just a flurry of rapid brush strokes and it would appear to be metamorphosing into his brush,

00:20:45.414 --> 00:20:46.818
as his flesh becomes instrument.

00:20:48.818 --> 00:20:51.041
It is audacious that a servant, albeit a courtier and Royal favourite,

00:20:53.265 --> 00:20:55.032
has given himself greater prominence than his master.

00:20:56.832 --> 00:21:00.405
But it is also inconceivable that Philip IV did not give the concept his Blessing in advance.

00:21:04.090 --> 00:21:06.582
In the same way the Queen's Chamberlain is opening 
up the implied space beyond the picture frame,

00:21:08.792 --> 00:21:10.548
the mirror here is reflecting the opposite direction,

00:21:11.938 --> 00:21:13.351
forward into the viewer's space.

00:21:14.831 --> 00:21:17.532
The reflection is of King Philip IV and Maria of Austria, the 
King and Queen.

00:21:20.138 --> 00:21:22.609
We know it is a mirror, and not a painting, as everything else is muted and fuzzy,

00:21:24.729 --> 00:21:28.272
whereas the image of the king and queen is bathed in light in the beveled mirror giving them an almost divine presence.

00:21:32.392 --> 00:21:34.879
That is if we believe the King and Queen are in the same room as the other characters.

00:21:41.239 --> 00:21:44.072
The aforementioned historian, Palamino, noted that the mirror which shows the royal couple, was actually a reflection,

00:21:46.892 --> 00:21:49.172
not of the real monarchs in the room, but of the canvas Velasquez is working on.

00:21:51.453 --> 00:21:53.221
In other words, the couple are not in the room.

00:21:55.161 --> 00:21:57.145
This idea is disputed though, as the reflection is not logical.

00:21:59.215 --> 00:22:03.439
It has to be said though, this is not the first time Velasquez has painted an image which explores the relationship between reality, reflection, and image,

00:22:07.869 --> 00:22:10.972
and which flouts the laws of

00:22:11.012 --> 00:22:13.063
Optics. Here too, we see the mirror with this rather blurred reflection.

00:22:15.033 --> 00:22:17.029
The constant speculation as to what is happening in this painting,

00:22:19.026 --> 00:22:21.639
who is where, and why, is absolutely intentional on the part 
of Velasquez.

00:22:24.099 --> 00:22:28.652
Whatever the study of perspective or reflection tells us, the Royal presence is still the most plausible explanation for the outward glances of the characters,

00:22:33.282 --> 00:22:37.356
and I think that the King and Queen ARE in the room, and the mirror IS a reflection of them at the far end of the room,sitting for Velasquez.

00:22:41.526 --> 00:22:44.953
The fact that the Queen's Chamberlain is opening the curtain to the Palace, 
sugests that the royal couple are preparing to exit.

00:22:48.028 --> 00:22:49.920
This would explained the infanta's gaze towards her parents.

00:22:51.670 --> 00:22:54.082
Velasquez, who seems to be peeping out of the darkness realising 
his time is up,

00:22:56.522 --> 00:22:59.558
and the Manina to the right of the infanta, who is beginning to curtsy, as she 
looks towards the couple.

00:23:02.658 --> 00:23:04.568
There is a palpable sense of anticipation in the air.

00:23:06.318 --> 00:23:09.388
If the king and queen are there, and I think they are, then Velasquez has one more trick up his sleeve.

00:23:12.238 --> 00:23:14.165
He has placed the king and queen outside of the pictorial space,

00:23:15.845 --> 00:23:18.366
standing exactly where we the commoners 
would stand, when we view the paintings.

00:23:21.336 --> 00:23:23.351
We are standing right next to King Philipe IV of Spain!

00:23:29.525 --> 00:23:31.908
With this painting, Velasquez was out to prove that painting was a noble, intellectual art,

00:23:34.228 --> 00:23:35.597
and Las Maninas would be evidence.

00:23:36.966 --> 00:23:38.921
It is in fact, a portrait about the painting of a 
portrait.

00:23:40.699 --> 00:23:42.157
Let's start with the physicality of the space.

00:23:43.807 --> 00:23:46.521
The building was destroyed by fire 
in 1734, but the historical plan still exist.

00:23:49.031 --> 00:23:52.470
Las meninas was painted in the Cuarto del Príncipe, or the 
king's quarters, in the Alcazar in Madrid.

00:23:56.020 --> 00:23:57.205
Which is the room depicted in the work.

00:23:58.365 --> 00:24:02.012
It was once part of 
the apartment occupied by the Crown Prince Don Baltasar Carlos, who had died in 1646.

00:24:05.412 --> 00:24:07.961
Once the painting was finished it was planned to be placed in that same room.

00:24:10.376 --> 00:24:13.605
An inventory of the room, proved 
that everything Velasquez painted, was really there (apart from the mirror in the back).

00:24:16.965 --> 00:24:18.785
The illusion starts with the almost life-size figures.

00:24:20.625 --> 00:24:22.800
The painting is enormous, coming in at over 10 ft by 9 ft.

00:24:24.960 --> 00:24:29.067
The room had these wonderful high ceilings, and the shutters have been placed by Velasquez to 
reveal slivers of light exactly where he wants it.

00:24:33.071 --> 00:24:35.000
The main light source is from an invisible window 
to the right

00:24:37.040 --> 00:24:40.249
, and another source is the door at the back, that illuminates the figure and sends a pencil thin beam across the floor.

00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:46.419
While Las Meninas is clearly a royal painting, it stands out from 
other court paintings,

00:24:48.929 --> 00:24:51.775
because the piece was intended to hang in a private room rather than displayed publicly.

00:24:54.535 --> 00:24:58.728
It may look formal to us nowadays, but compared to other Royal portraits, Las Meninas is fairly spontaneous, casual, and relaxed.

00:25:02.803 --> 00:25:06.897
There is a LOT in this painting; people, animals, Reflections, 
25:07
paintings on the wall, textures, other objects, and movement

00:25:10.992 --> 00:25:13.999
- and yet, there is a cohesion to the 
canvas, because it is organised in an orderly composition.

00:25:17.072 --> 00:25:20.031
It is balanced perfectly with the 
relatively quiet top half against the busy bottom half.

00:25:23.080 --> 00:25:25.170
The figures occupy a clear horizontal strip 
across the painting,

00:25:27.350 --> 00:25:29.770
but it isn't frieze-like, as they are at different depths into the view.

00:25:31.700 --> 00:25:33.618
The first layer is the canvas, the dwarf, and the dog.

00:25:35.536 --> 00:25:36.901
Then we have the infanta and her maids.

00:25:38.265 --> 00:25:40.087
And then Velasquez, the chaperone and the bodyguard.

00:25:41.927 --> 00:25:44.283
The layering continues throughout the picture, and beyond 
the picture frame.

00:25:48.191 --> 00:25:52.188
The painting features several frames; the frame of the room in which they are all standing,

00:25:52.658 --> 00:25:55.307
the frames of the paintings on the wall, the frame of the canvas Velasquez is working 
on,

00:25:58.127 --> 00:25:59.826
the frame of the mirror, and the frame of the door in the background.

00:26:01.816 --> 00:26:03.666
These frames provide a 
strong linear and geometric theme to the painting.

00:26:05.766 --> 00:26:06.691
You get a feel of structure and organisation.

00:26:08.891 --> 00:26:11.173
But, a perfect perspective is not essential to our understanding of this painting,

00:26:13.433 --> 00:26:15.141
any more than a 
perfect understanding of optics.

00:26:16.960 --> 00:26:18.696
What is the focal point? Well there are several possibilities.

00:26:20.433 --> 00:26:24.296
Just look at the picture as a whole, and you notice your eye scans around the canvas, as it would do in any large space.

00:26:28.410 --> 00:26:30.682
We ricochet from one figure to another.

00:26:31.342 --> 00:26:33.952
Possible Focus points are the man in the 
doorway, the infanta, or the reflection of the King and Queen.

00:26:36.563 --> 00:26:39.001
It seems at first glance that Velasquez is drawing all our attention to the infanta,

00:26:42.051 --> 00:26:44.800
and he has used some clever and subtle techniques to draw 
attention to her in such a busy scene.

00:26:47.399 --> 00:26:50.258
There is the dress of course, but also she faces towards the main light
source coming from the right,

00:26:53.328 --> 00:26:55.043
while most of the other figures are facing away from the light.

00:26:56.550 --> 00:26:59.907
Maria Augustina is looking directly at her, and the characters to the left nudge us towards the infanta.

00:27:04.087 --> 00:27:07.166
We do know that this painting was not intended to be on public View 
and was really considered a private possession of the king

00:27:10.306 --> 00:27:11.845
- for an audience of one.

00:27:12.305 --> 00:27:14.290
Which would suggest the focal point is the reflection of the king?

00:27:16.350 --> 00:27:19.197
The focus is STILL highly debated 
and always wil

00:27:22.197 --> 00:27:26.666
l be, but the vanishing point is not. It comes from José Nieto, as he stands in the staircase, more specifically the crook of his arm is the exact vanishing point.

00:27:31.876 --> 00:27:33.636
THIS is the key to Velasquez's 
mastery of Illusion.

00:27:36.076 --> 00:27:39.136
He uses realism, light, and structure, to pull together the disparate elements 
in an exquisitely balanced painting.

00:27:42.136 --> 00:27:45.398
It is an image so complex, that he could only have achieved it at 
this later stage of his life,

00:27:48.528 --> 00:27:50.629
with the extensive knowledge he has picked up from a lifetime of painting.

00:27:56.639 --> 00:28:00.244
The two paintings on the back wall are important symbolically, and represent two oil paintings by Rubens, Velasquez's role model.

00:28:03.834 --> 00:28:06.577
And show scenes from Ovid's "Metamorphoses".

00:28:06.647 --> 00:28:08.488
There is a good reason they are there.

00:28:09.079 --> 00:28:12.050
If we remember that Velasquez wants desperately to raise his 
profession from "Tradesmen" to "Artistic nobility".

00:28:14.870 --> 00:28:17.786
They tell the tale of the superiority, the nobility, 
and the Divine calling of the artist.

00:28:21.366 --> 00:28:23.306
In which Mortals prove themselves more skilled than even 
the gods.

00:28:25.246 --> 00:28:27.555
Rubens was the most influential Flemish artist of the 17th century,

00:28:29.864 --> 00:28:33.133
so by linking himself with Rubens, Velasquez is showing that he had reached the highest tier in European art.

00:28:39.843 --> 00:28:42.126
One of the great enigmas in the portrait of Velasquez, is the Red Cross on his tunic.

00:28:44.410 --> 00:28:47.792
It is the heraldic symbol of the order of Santiago,

00:28:47.802 --> 00:28:49.711
a religious and Military order, founded in the 12th 
century.

00:28:51.620 --> 00:28:54.414
He had petitioned the king to make him a knight of Santiago for years, to secure Noble status,

00:28:57.760 --> 00:29:00.346
citing the link between artistic nobility and social nobility.

00:29:02.806 --> 00:29:05.034
But the committee of the order 
of Santiago refused - due to his bloodline.

00:29:07.234 --> 00:29:08.888
It was rumoured that his grandparents were Jewish converts.

00:29:10.428 --> 00:29:13.559
Luckily for Velasquez, as well as being employer and employee, he and Philip IV were close friends,

00:29:16.579 --> 00:29:19.428
and he was finally inducted in the order in 1659, a year before his death,

00:29:22.528 --> 00:29:25.857
after the king obtained a dispensation from the Pope to overrule doubts as to the artist's blood and trade.

00:29:30.187 --> 00:29:33.241
Diego Velasquez, in many ways was unremarkable, apart from the fact he was appointed court painter.

00:29:35.791 --> 00:29:40.350
He had one wife, one Friend (the King), and one Studio (the palace), and spent his whole life climbing the social ladder.

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:47.280
His Knighthood is the culmination.

00:29:48.340 --> 00:29:51.755
What makes makes this cross in the painting interesting, is that he was knighted a full 3 years after Las meninas was finished,

00:29:54.999 --> 00:29:59.048
and a year before he died, which means that the cross was painted on the artist's tunic years after the painting was created.

00:30:03.388 --> 00:30:08.149
Tradition had it, that after the artist's death, Philipe IV 
himself painted the Red Cross of the Knights of Santiago on the tunic, but that's unlikely.

00:30:12.769 --> 00:30:16.957
After the painting was cleaned in the early 1980s it was revealed that the brush work of the cross is uniform with the rest of the surface,

00:30:21.146 --> 00:30:23.010
so it was almost certainly Velasquez 
who painted the cross.

00:30:24.980 --> 00:30:30.417
We can only imagine the immense satisfaction the artist got from adding 
the cross to the painting, and therefore rubbing the snobby courtier's noses in the fact that he was now one of them.

00:30:37.642 --> 00:30:39.743
Velasquez, who was in essence, born a trades person, died a wealthy Noble.

00:30:41.844 --> 00:30:46.616
On his death it is said that the King was heartbroken, and the great friendship that had united them, is evident in three words that the Monarch wrote

00:30:51.516 --> 00:30:55.859
in a memorandum after his death: "I am shaken".

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Transcript by Margarida Mariz