Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez Biography In Details

Diego Velazquez born in Seville, Andalusia, Spain early on June 6, 1599, and baptized on June 6, Velazquez was the son of Juan Rodriguez de Silva (born Joao Rodrigues da Silva), a lawyer whose parents, Diogo da Silva and wife Maria Rodrigues, were Portuguese Jews, and Jeronima Velazquez, a member of the hidalgo class, an order of minor aristocracy (it was a Spanish custom, in order to maintain a legacy of maternal inheritance, for the eldest male to adopt the name of his mother). Recent archival investigations carried out by Mendez, ingram and others not only reject his aristocratic origins, but have brought to light that he belonged to the Jewish converso lineage. He was educated by his parents to fear God and, intended for a learned profession, received good training in languages and philosophy. But he showed an early gift for art; consequently, he began to study under Francisco de Herrera, a vigorous painter who disregarded the italian influence of the early Seville school. Velazquez remained with him for one year. it was probably from Herrera that he learned to use brushes with long bristles.

After leaving Herrera's studio when he was 12 years old, Velazquez began to serve as an apprentice under Francisco Pacheco, an artist and teacher in Seville. Though considered a generally dull, undistinguished painter, Pacheco sometimes expressed a simple, direct realism in contradiction to the style of Raphael that he was taught. Velazquez remained in Pacheco's school for five years, studying proportion and perspective and witnessing the trends in the literary and artistic circles of Seville.

By the early 1620s, his position and reputation were assured in Seville. in 1618, Velazquez married Juana Pacheco (June 1, 1602-August 10, 1660), the daughter of his teacher. She bore him two daughters-his only known family. The younger, ignacia de Silva Velazquez y Pacheco, died in infancy, while the elder, Francisca de Silva Velazquez y Pacheco (1619-1658), married painter Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo at the Church of Santiago in Madrid in August 21, 1633.

Velazquez produced other notable works in this time. Sacred subjects are depicted in Adoracion de los Reyes (1619, The Adoration of the Magi), and Jesus y los peregrinos de Emaus (1626, Christ and the Pilgrims of Emmaus), both of which begin to express his more pointed and careful realism.

Madrid and Philip iV

Velazquez went to Madrid in the first half of April 1622, with letters of introduction to Don Juan de Fonseca, himself from Seville, who was chaplain to the King. At the request of Pacheco, Velazquez painted the portrait of the famous poet Luis de Gongora y Argote. Velazquez painted Gongora crowned with a laurel wreath, but painted over it at some unknown later date. it is possible that Velazquez stopped in Toledo on his way from Seville, on the advice of Pacheco, or back from Madrid on that of Gongora, a great admirer of El Greco, having composed a poem on the occasion of his death.

in December 1622, Rodrigo de Villandrando, the king's favorite court painter, died. Don Juan de Fonseca conveyed to Velazquez the command to come to the court from the Count-Duke of Olivares, the powerful minister of Philip iV. He was offered 50 ducats (175 g of gold-worth about Euro 2000 in 2005) to defray his expenses, and he was accompanied by his father-in-law. Fonseca lodged the young painter in his own home and sat for a portrait himself, which, when completed, was conveyed to the royal palace. A portrait of the king was commissioned. On August 16, 1623, Philip iV sat for Velazquez. Complete in one day, the portrait was likely to have been no more than a head sketch, but both the king and Olivares were pleased. Olivares commanded Velazquez to move to Madrid, promising that no other painter would ever paint Philip's portrait and all other portraits of the king would be withdrawn from circulation. in the following year, 1624, he received 300 ducats from the king to pay the cost of moving his family to Madrid, which became his home for the remainder of his life.

Through a bust portrait of the king, painted in 1623, Velazquez secured admission to the royal service, with a salary of 20 ducats per month, besides medical attendance, lodgings and payment for the pictures he might paint. The portrait was exhibited on the steps of San Felipe and was received with enthusiasm. it is now lost. The Museo del Prado, however, has two of Velazquez's portraits of the king (nos. 1070 and 1071) in which the severity of the Seville period has disappeared and the tones are more delicate. The modeling is firm, recalling that of Antonio Mor, the Dutch portrait painter of Philip ii, who exercised a considerable influence on the Spanish school. in the same year, the Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles i) arrived at the court of Spain. Records indicate that he sat for Velazquez, but the picture is now lost.

in September 1628, Peter Paul Rubens came to Madrid as an emissary from the infanta isabella, and Velazquez kept his company among the Titians at the Escorial. Rubens was then at the height of his powers. The seven months of the diplomatic mission showed Rubens' brilliance as painter and courtier. Rubens had a high opinion of Velazquez, but he effected no great change in his painting. He reinforced Velazquez's desire to see italy and the works of the great italian masters.

in 1627, Philip set a competition for the best painters of Spain with the subject to be the expulsion of the Moors. Velazquez won. His picture was destroyed in a fire at the palace in 1734. Recorded descriptions of it say that it depicted Philip iii pointing with his baton to a crowd of men and women driven off under charge of soldiers, while the female personification of Spain sits in calm repose. Velazquez was appointed gentleman usher as reward. Later he also received a daily allowance of 12 reis, the same amount allotted to the court barbers, and 90 ducats a year for dress. Five years after he painted it in 1629, as an extra payment, he received 100 ducats for the picture of Bacchus (The Feast of Bacchus). The spirit and aim of this work are better understood from its Spanish name, Los borrachos (the drunks) or Los bebedores (the drinkers), who are paying mock homage to a half-naked ivy-crowned young man seated on a wine barrel. The painting is firm and solid, and the light and shade are more deftly handled than in former works. Altogether, this production may be taken as the most advanced example of the first style of Velazquez.

in 1629, he went to live in italy for a year and a half. Though his first italian visit is recognized as a crucial chapter in the development of Velazquez's style - and in the history of Spanish Royal Patronage, since Philip iV sponsored his trip - we know rather little about the details and specifics: what the painter saw, whom he met, how he was perceived and what innovations he hoped to introduce into his painting. it is canonical to divide the artistic career of Velazquez by his two visits to italy, with his second grouping of works following the first visit and his third grouping following the second visit. This somewhat arbitrary division may be accepted though it will not always apply, because, as is usual in the case of many painters, his styles at times overlap each other. Velazquez rarely signed his pictures, and the royal archives give the dates of only his most important works. internal evidence and history pertaining to his portraits supply the rest to a certain extent.

Return to Madrid (middle period)

Velazquez then painted the first of many portraits of the young prince and heir to the Spanish throne, Don Baltasar Carlos, looking dignified and lordly even in his childhood, in the dress of a field marshal on his prancing steed. The scene is in the riding school of the palace, the king and queen looking on from a balcony, while Olivares attends as master of the horse to the prince. Don Baltasar died in 1646 at the age of seventeen, so, judging by his age in the portrait, it must have been painted in about 1641.

The powerful minister Olivares was the early and constant patron of the painter. His impassive, saturnine face is familiar to us from the many portraits painted by Velazquez. Two are notable; one is a full-length, stately and dignified, in which he wears the green cross of the order of Alcantara and holds a wand, the badge of his office as master of the horse, the other, a great equestrian portrait in which he is flatteringly represented as a field marshal during action. in these portraits, Velazquez has well repaid the debt of gratitude that he owed to his first patron, whom Velazquez stood by during Olivares's fall from power, thus exposing himself to the great risk of the anger of the jealous Philip. The king, however, showed no sign of malice towards his favorite painter.

The sculptor Montafles modeled a statue of one of Velazquez's equestrian portraits of the king, painted in 1636, which was cast in bronze by the Florentine sculptor Pietro Tacca and which now stands in the Plaza de Oriente at Madrid. The original of this portrait no longer exists, but several others do. Velazquez, in this and in all his portraits of the king, depicts Philip wearing the golilla, a stiff linen collar projecting at right angles from the neck. it was invented by the king, who was so proud of it that he celebrated it by a festival followed by a procession to the church to thank God for the blessing. Thus, the golilla was the height of fashion, and appeared in most of the male portraits of the period.

Velazquez was in constant and close attendance on Philip, accompanying him in his journeys to Aragon in 1642 and 1644, and was doubtless present with him when he entered Lerida as a conqueror. it was then that he painted a great equestrian portrait in which the king is represented as a great commander leading his troops-a role which Philip never played except in pageantry. All is full of animation except the stolid face of the king. it hangs as a pendant to the great Olivares portrait-fit rivals of the neighboring Charles V by Titian, which inspired Velazquez to excel himself, and both remarkable for their silvery tone and their feeling of open air.

Portraiture

Besides the forty portraits of Philip by Velazquez, he painted portraits of other members of the royal family: Philip's first wife, isabella of Bourbon, and her children, especially her eldest son, Don Baltasar Carlos, of whom there is a beautiful full-length in a private room at Buckingham Palace. Cavaliers, soldiers, churchmen, and the prominent poet Francisco de Quevedo (now at Apsley House), sat for Velazquez.

One wonders who the beautiful woman can be who adorns the Wallace collection, a brunette so unlike the usual fair-haired female sitters to Velazquez. This picture is one of the ornaments of the Wallace collection. However, if few ladies of the court of Philip have been depicted, Velazquez painted several of his buffoons and dwarfs. Velazquez appears to represent them with respect and sympathetically, as in El Primo (1644, English: The Favorite), whose intelligent face and huge folio with ink-bottle and pen by his side show him to be a wiser and better-educated man than many of the gallants of the court. Pablo de Valladolid (1635, English: Paul of Valladolid), a buffoon evidently acting a part, and El Bobo de Coria (1639, English: The Buffoon of Coria) belong to this middle period.

The greatest of the religious paintings by Velazquez also belongs to this middle period, the Cristo Crucificado (1632, English: Christ on the Cross). it is a work of tremendous originality, depicting Christ immediately after death. The Savior's head hangs on his breast and a mass of dark tangled hair conceals part of the face. The figure stands alone. The picture was lengthened to suit its place in an oratory, but this addition has since been removed. Some believe that the man in this painting is his uncle.

Velazquez's son-in-law Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo had succeeded him as usher in 1634, and Mazo himself had received a steady promotion in the royal household. Mazo received a pension of 500 ducats in 1640, increased to 700 in 1648, for portraits painted and to be painted, and was appointed inspector of works in the palace in 1647.

Philip now entrusted Velazquez with carrying out a design on which he had long set his heart: the founding of an academy of art in Spain. Rich in pictures, Spain was weak in statuary, and Velazquez was commissioned once again to proceed to italy to make purchases.

Second Visit to italy

Accompanied by his manservant Juan de Pareja, whom he trained in painting, Velazquez sailed from Malaga in 1649, landing at Genoa, and proceeded from Milan to Venice, buying paintings of Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese as he went. At Modena he was received with much favor by the duke, and here he painted the portrait of the duke at the Modena gallery and two portraits that now adorn the Dresden gallery, for these paintings came from the Modena sale of 1746.

Those works presage the advent of the painter's third and latest manner, a noble example of which is the great portrait of Pope innocent X in the Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Rome, where Velazquez now proceeded. There he was received with marked favor by the Pope, who presented him with a medal and golden chain. Velazquez took a copy of the portrait-which Sir Joshua Reynolds thought was the finest picture in Rome-with him to Spain. Several copies of it exist in different galleries, some of them possibly studies for the original or replicas painted for Philip. Velazquez, in this work, had now reached the manera abreviada, a term coined by contemporary Spaniards for this bolder, sharper style. The portrait shows such ruthlessness in innocent's expression that some in the Vatican feared that Velazquez would meet with the Pope's displeasure, but innocent was well pleased with the work, hanging it in his official visitor's waiting room.

in 1650 in Rome Velazquez also painted a portrait of his servant, Juan de Pareja, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. This portrait procured his election into the Academy of St. Luke. Purportedly Velazquez created this portrait as a warm-up of his skills before his portrait of the Pope. it captures in great detail Pareja's countenance and his somewhat worn and patched clothing with an impressive economy of brushwork; it is one of his best known pieces of portraiture.

King Philip wished that Velazquez return to Spain; accordingly, after a visit to Naples, where he saw his old friend Jose Ribera, he returned to Spain via Barcelona in 1651, taking with him many pictures and 300 pieces of statuary, which afterwards were arranged and cataloged for the king. Undraped sculpture was, however, abhorrent to the Spanish Church, and after Philip's death these works gradually disappeared. isabella of Bourbon had died in 1644, and the king had married Marie-Anne of Austria, whom Velazquez now painted in many attitudes. He was specially chosen by the king to fill the high office of aposentador mayor, which imposed on him the duty of looking after the quarters occupied by the court-a responsible function which was no sinecure and one which interfered with the exercise of his art. Yet far from indicating any decline, his works of this period are amongst the highest examples of his style.

Had it not been for this royal appointment, which enabled Velazquez to escape the censorship of the inquisition, he would not have been able to release his La Venus del espejo (c. 1644-1648, English: Venus at her Mirror) also known as The Rokeby Venus. it is the only surviving female nude by Velazquez.

There were essentially only two patrons of art in Spain-the church and the art-loving king and court. Bartolome Esteban Murillo was the artist favored by the church, while Velazquez was patronized by the crown. One difference, however, deserves to be noted. Murillo, who toiled for a rich and powerful church, left little means to pay for his burial, while Velazquez lived and died in the enjoyment of good salaries and pensions.

One of his final works was Las hilanderas (The Spinners), painted circa 1657, representing the interior of the royal tapestry works. it is full of light, air and movement, featuring vibrant colors and careful handling. Anton Raphael Mengs said this work seemed to have been painted not by the hand but by the pure force of will. it displays a concentration of all the art-knowledge Velazquez had gathered during his long artistic career of more than forty years. The scheme is simple-a confluence of varied and blended red, bluish-green, grey and black.

Velazquez' final portraits of the royal children are among his finest works. These include the infanta Margarita in blue dress and his only surviving portrait of the sickly Prince Felipe Prospero. The latter is remarkable for its combination of the sweet features of the child prince and his dog with a subtle sense of gloom. As in all of the artist's late paintings, the handling of the colors is extraordinarily fluid and vibrant.

in 1660 a peace treaty between France and Spain was consummated by the marriage of Maria Theresa with Louis XiV, and the ceremony took place on the island of Pheasants, a small swampy island in the Bidassoa. Velazquez was charged with the decoration of the Spanish pavilion and with the entire scenic display. He attracted much attention from the nobility of his bearing and the splendor of his costume. On June 26 he returned to Madrid, and on July 31 he was stricken with fever. Feeling his end approaching, he signed his will, appointing as his sole executors his wife and his firm friend named Fuensalida, keeper of the royal records. He died on August 6, 1660. He was buried in the Fuensalida vault of the church of San Juan Bautista, and within eight days his wife Juana was buried beside him. Unfortunately, this church was destroyed by the French in 1811, so his place of interment is now unknown. There was much difficulty in adjusting the tangled accounts outstanding between Velazquez and the treasury, and it was not until 1666, after the death of King Philip, that they were finally settled. (From Wikipedia)