Velazquez was a renowned Spanish painter known for his realistic portraits and mastery of light and shadow. He served as a court painter for King Philip IV from 1623 until his death in 1660. Some of his most famous works include Las Meninas, The Rokeby Venus, and portraits of Pope Innocent X and Juan de Pareja. The document provides background information on Velazquez and analyzes several of his paintings through detailed descriptions of his techniques and the subjects depicted.

1. Diego Velazquez
1599 Sevilla – 1660 Madrid First created 1 April 2009. Version 4.0, 10 Sep 2018, London. Daperro
The painter of painters.
“…while all the rest was art, this
alone was truth.”
Remarks on his painting. 1650, Rome.

2. Spanish Inquisition
The Age of Reformation began in 1517 with Martin
Luther challenging the Catholic for the widespread
corruptions , including the Pope.
To combat the Protestant surge, the Catholic launched
their Counter Reformation, which led to asceticism (self-
deprivation as a route to salvation).
This led to intolerance to un-Catholic practices and ideas.
We saw the burning of books and even paintings in
Spain.
To fight protestant, the Spanish Inquisition used torture
to extract confessions from heretics, with the blessing of
the Catholic church.
The Spanish royal family saw themselves as the defender
of the Catholic faith.
It was in this socio-political environment that the Rokeby
Venus was painted.
The Spanish Inquisition, a legal religious commission with
power to sentence, was started in 15C to persecute the
Jews and the Moors to rid Spain of heretics. It was finally
abolished by Napoleon in 1813, more than 300 years
later.

3. Skillfully painted
kitchen wares.
Early works

4. Using very limited colours, in
this early Caravagesque
painting He made grandeur and
gravity out of an daily event. He
painted the water seller (right)
with formality and respects.
He showed his painting skill by
the light falling on the glass
and the wet jug.
The Water Seller of Seville

5. Velazquez’s painting skills on light
falling on the glass, the wet jug
and the dry water container.
The Water Seller of Seville

6. Adoration of the Magi
Velazquez portrayed the Holy family in a direct way.
In particularly he drew our attention toward the
newly born Christ Baby and to the Virgin Mary,
while St Joseph looks up in admiration, while the
three kings kneel and presented their gifts of gold,
frankincense and myrrh.

7. Rokeby Venus
1610s.
1656
1640.
1634
Rokeby Venus

8. The Robeby Venus. 1647-51, Oil on canvas. 122x77 cm. National Gallery, London.
Only surviving Velazquez’s nude, such painting was heretical. It must be painted for someone in
power. All the edges in the painting are softly defined. The smooth creamy flesh is the most
distinctive feature of the painting, in contrast with the folded slate-grey sheet.
Rokeby Venus

9. What is the mirror for? For Venus or for us?
Rokeby Venus

10. Some say beauty cannot be painted. Maybe Velazquez wanted to protect her identity.
Though the Venus acknowledged our present.

11. Rokeby Venus

12. Very broad brush stroke. Is this ‘truth’ and not ‘reality’?
Rokeby Venus

13. Rokeby Venus
The Robeby Venus. 1647-51, Oil on canvas. 122x77 cm. National Gallery, London. .

14. Las Meninas, the Maids of Honour. Velazquez brilliantly arranged the people in this spatial maze. Although
the Infanta Margarite occupied the central place in the painting yet the painting is about Velazquez. It
marked the zenith of his achievement, as he proudly wore the Cross of Santiago. In the present of the King
and Queen, from the out-of-focus reflection on the mirror.
Las Meninas

15. Velazquez
King & Queen
posing on the
mirror’s
reflection
Princess Infanta
Margarita
A palace
marshal
Lady in waiting
Lady in waiting
Two
dwarfs
Nurse &
chaperon

16. Velazquez often painted in and out of focus, just as we normally do.

18. Velazquez showed himself as the king’s painter and the knight of the order of Santiago. In the company of the
Spanish royal family, this painting summarized his life time achieve as a court painter par excellent.

21. Painting Technique
1. Apply a base colours.
2. Then created the effect
of light using darker
and lighter colours.
3. Finished of some the
finer details.
4. Added the cross after
he had been made a
knight of the order.

22. Fable of Arahne

23. Fable of Arahne

24. Apollo & Vulcan

25. Apollo & Vulcan
This painting was painted in
Rome. It showed the humanity of
gods.
The painting depict the scene
when Apollo told Vulcan that his
wife, Venus, was in the arms of
his vest client, Mars.
In the painting Velazquez had
depicted a range of emotive
reaction to Apollo’s message.

26. Portrays

27. The drinkers were an extraordinary group of rough and weather beaten men. They were modeled on real
people, in contemporary clothes, They looked out of the painting with their drunken gleams on their faces,
drowning in the wine and free from the burden of daily living.
The Feast of Bacchus

28. The Feast of Bacchus

29. Velazquez painted her with aged face and suspicious eyes, filled with missionary zeal and steely
intelligence. She held her cross with determination. She is personification of the religious super-ego. She is
ready to take the harsh, disapproving measures to curb disobedience, which she wearily expected. It
was Catholic answer to counter the Protestant’s purity.
Painted shortly before Jeronima left for Philippines to found the first convent there.
Mother Jeronima de la Fuente. 1620. Private Collection.Jeronima de la Fuente

30. This magnificent silver robe of the king is deceptive. The closer
you get to the painting the more you are aware of his amazing
painting technique. What looks meticulously and labouredly
painted silver threads become a jumbo of hastily applied
brushstrokes. From a distance, Velazquez depended on our
eyes and brain to bland and see what we perceived. This
demonstrated his understanding of the sensation of lights that
is the bases of the Impressionist approach in the 19C.

31. This is a portrait of a noble, dignify and intelligent man with an intense gaze. This is Velazquez’s most
searching works.

32. It is painful to realize that de Morra, the
intelligent and dignified dwarf, was
employed for the amusement of the
court. Velazquez did not compromise
on his disability. The closed fisted and
shortened legs were honestly depicted.
His character is strengthened with de
Morra’s intense and almost tearful gaze.

33. The painting was painted with a very
limited range of colours. Juan de
Pareja appeared on the painting as if
he was from the nobility. Velazquez
painted him with astounding dignity.
It was clear that he painted him with a
lot of respect.
Juan de Pareja was a Moor and he
was also a slave, working for
Velazquez. Velazquez freed him in
1654. He became a painter in his own
right.
If respect can be painted, this is it.
Juan de Pareja

34. Female Sibyl
Although the painting was giving
the called ‘Sibyl with Tubula
Rasa’ , there is some doubt if the
title is appropriate. Sibyls were
female prophets who foretold the
coming of Jesus to the Roman.
The clothing (not robes) and the
simply hair style suggested
otherwise.

35. Velazquez portrayed Pope Innocent X with
his weariness and mistrust that he was
well-known for. This is the man who held on
power with an iron grip. His calculated gaze
warn us to approach with care.
This painting is universally regarded as a
supreme masterpiece of portraiture not only
in the way he painted the subject but also his
psychological penetration on the
character.
Pope Innocent X

36. Pope Innocent X
Apsley House. London version Galleria Doria-Pamphiji. Rome. version

37. Aesop
Aesop, a Greek writer who lived in the 6C BC, is famous for his
fables illustrating truths about life and human nature. After having a
slave to two masters, he was freed as a reward for his wit and
wisdom and rose to prominence as a philosopher.
Velazquez depicted Aesop as a tired old man, who steered with
serious intelligent expression and great dignity.

38. Mars
Velazquez depicted Mars as a veteran, instead of
a heroic figure of brute strength and courageous
fighter. He appeared to be deflated, peering out
enigmatically through the shadow cast by his
helmet.

39. Francisco Lezcano
The man is thought to be Francisco
Lezcano, who came to court from in 1634.
Not much is known about the man.
Dwarfs and fools were exploited by court
culture, that saw them as curiosities.
Velazquez portrayed him frankly. Having
crawled up on a rock, leaving his hot
behind, he looked slightly down on us. This
is one of four portraits that depicted dwarfs
and a fool, not a subject usually painted by
other artists.

40. The latest of three portraits of the
Infanta Margarita by Velazquez in the
Kunst historishches Museum. This
reflected the 17C relationship between
the two branches of the Habsburgs –
Spain and Austria.
Infanta Margarita was born on 12 July
1651. She was promised in early
childhood to her uncle and also cousin,
the crown prince Leopold, later
Emperor Leopold I.
These paintings of Infanta Margarite
were sent to Austria to show how the
young princess was progressing.
Pope Infanta Margarita in a Blue Dress

41. These paintings of Infanta Margarite were sent to Austria to show how the young princess was progressing.
Pope Infanta Margarita in a Blue Dress

42. Velazquez’s Landscape
Landscape
An example of Velazquez’s
landscape painting.

43. Velazquez Timeline
Velazquez
Timeline
Many of Velazquez canvases were large.

44. 17 Century SpainIn the beginning 16C to mid-17, Spain was the
superpower in an uni-polar world. Apart from the
Americas, the Netherlands (including Belgium today),
Southern Italy, Austria, part of France and even the
Philippines belonged to Spain. Its powerful navy
sailed on all the oceans of the world.
Why is the King of Spain, the powerful man in world
built his enormous palace like a prison, the Escorial
just outside Madrid?
The Spanish King saw himself as the defender of
the Catholic faith. In response to the Protestant
Reformation, the Catholic preached a life style of
abstinence from worldly pleasures in pursuit of a
spiritual goals.
Spain constantly went to wars with the Protestant
states. The Thirty Years War, the Spanish Armada,
the French Wars of Religion just to name a few.
By the time of Diego Velazquez, Spain was already bankrupted, with an immense burden of debts. Gold
shipments from the New World were continued disrupted. Spain was at odds with reality (like Don Quixote in
the greatest Spanish novel by Cervantes). No expenses were spared on lavish displays or in erecting
Cathedrals, palaces of religion. The Church colluded the ruling class to create the most repressive
society in Western Europe. This lasted into the 20C. Spain was finally free from itself when Spain joined
the European Union.
It was under this climate that Diego Velazquez lived. This made his search for the ‘Truth’ in his paintings
that more surprising, while others glorified or in delusion.

45. All rights reserved. Rights belong to their respective owners.
Available free for non-commercial and personal use.
Music – By Yasmin Levy, Naci En Alamo (I was born in
Alamo), Written in Ladino (Judeo-Espanol) and Flamenco
style, dating back to 500 year ago.
“I have no place. And I have no landscapes. I have no homeland.
With my cold fingers I made a fire. And with my heart I sing to you.
The chords of my heart are crying.”
Pope Infanta Margarita in a Blue Dress
The
End

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