Preview

Criticism of Diego Velàzquez' "Las Meninas, Sebastiàn de Morra, and Ba

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
4025 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Criticism of Diego Velàzquez' "Las Meninas, Sebastiàn de Morra, and Ba
Diego Velàzquez was called the "noblest and most commanding man among the artists of his country." He was a master realist, and no painter has surpassed him in the ability to seize essential features and fix them on canvas with a few broad, sure strokes. "His men and women seem to breathe," it has been said; "his horses are full of action and his dogs of life." Because of Velàzquez ' great skill in merging color, light, space, rhythm of line, and mass in such a way that all have equal value, he was known as "the painter 's painter," as demonstrated in the paintings Las Meninas, Sebastiàn de Morra, and Baltasar Carlos and a Dwarf.

Las Meninas is a pictorial summary and a commentary on the essential mystery of the visual world, as well as on the ambiguity that results when different states or levels interact or are juxtaposed. The painting of The Royal Family also known as Las Meninas has always been regarded as an unsurpassable masterpiece. According to Palomino, it ‘was finished ' in 1656, and, while Velàzquez was painting it, the King, the Queen, and the Infantas Marìa Teresa and Margarita often came to watch him at work. In the painting, the painter himself is seen at the easel; the mirror on the rear wall reflects the half-length figures of Philip IV and Queen Mariana standing under a red curtain. The Infanta Margarita is in the center, attended by two Meninas, or maids of honor, Doña Isabel de Velasco and Doña Marìa Sarmiento, who curtsy as the latter offers her mistress a drink of water in a bùcaro—a reddish earthen vessel –on a tray. In the right foreground stand a female dwarf, Mari-Bàrbola, and a midget, Nicolàs de Pertusato, who playfully puts his foot on the back of the mastiff resting on the floor. Linked to this large group there is another formed by Doña Marcela de Ulloa, guardamujer de las damas de la Reina – attendant to the ladies-in-waiting—and an unidentified guardadamas, or escort to the same ladies. In the background, the



Bibliography: Brown, Jonathan. Velàzquez Painter and Courtier. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986. Kleiner, Fred S., Mamiya, Christin J., Tansey Richard G. Gardner 's Art Through the Ages, vol. II. Harcourt college Publishers; San Diego et al. 2001. Lopez-Rey, Josè. Velàzquez Work and World. Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Society, 1968. Internet Article: www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/velazquez/

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    In Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's Relacion, Cabeza de Vaca writes an account of his disastrous expedition to the New World, as well as providing a legal document in which the rhetoric of his narrative transforms his story of failure into a story of success. In chapter thirty-four, Cabeza de Vaca uses the three elements of rhetoric; ethos, logos, and pathos, to express that Spanish law is unsuitable for the circumstances encountered in the New World.…

    • 1335 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Alejandro de la Fuente is writing an argument on slavery with different point of view, narrating a debate based on the Law in Latin America. The different prespectives are from Tannenbaum who is well known as a big influence during slavery, Christopher Schmidt-Nowara and Maria Elena Diaz. The author started with a confession about what he thinks of the work that this people have done and explaining their position and point of view. Slave opportunites such as slave codes, immigration and education, were part of this debate. To fiish the main claim of his article, the author gave an example of how slaves who claim their priorities gain a little of victory making an impact in the administration of justice, in this case, the local justice. Even…

    • 217 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    unit 3 quiz

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages

    11. The artist of the Valley of Mexico is Jose Maria Velasco, the significance of this series is that they captured the mood and grandeur of the Mexican landscape; it also symbolized the modernisms of Mexico.…

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Francisco de la Goya is considered to be one of the most influential painters from Spain. He works from the 18th and 19th centuries influenced the art of the 20th century, “marking the beginning of the Contemporary painting period” ("Francisco De Goya Biography - Famous Spanish Painter | Don Quijote.", Online). Goya’s passion for painting began at a young age, and continued to grow as his knowledge grew. Over the years, his style began to change due to experiences, and this can be seen in his most famous works.…

    • 574 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jose Clemente Orozco was a famous Mexican Social Realist who specialized in bold murals that established Mexican Mural Renaissance together with murals by Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros, and others. Orozco was the most complex of the Mexican muralists, fond of the theme of human suffering, and realist. Mostly influenced by symbolism, he was also a genre painter between 1922 and 1948.…

    • 483 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    He had many great acomplishments such as being considered one of the founders of modernist schools of dominican painting along with Yoryi Morel and Jaime Colson. In his early career he…

    • 211 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    There is a South African Proverb that states "Until lions write books, history will always glorify the hunter". In his play "Los Vendidos", Luis Valdez tries to become a lion and let the voice of Chicano history be heard. Luis Valdez does this in a satirical way by presenting the views and stereotypes that many American's have had and continue to have, about Chicano's in the form of a shop where Chicano "model/robots" are sold. By presenting each Chicano as a robot and stereotype, Luis Valdez tries to earse of the "models" of Chicano's that people have in their heads and tries to point out that there is a strong Chicano culture and a rich history that has been ignored by American's for years. "Los Vendidos" is a challenge to all people but…

    • 1889 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Horace Hall Professor Sansome Latin America Humanities March 7, 2016 Diego Rivera: 1 Mexican Painter Diego Rivera was a big man, and not only because he stood over six feet tall and weighed, at times, more than three hundred pounds. Rivera dominated the Mexican art world from soon after the end of the country's revolution in 1920 until his death in 1957. At the age of seventy. 1 Rivera revived, and put to use, the antique medium of fresco painting. Fresco painting used pigments impregnating a paste of marble dust or sand and water-treated lime, which dries rock hard. His energy and his optimism charmed all sorts of people, from Parisian avant-gardes to American captains of industry.…

    • 648 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    He painted on the treatment of the poor and how they were oppressed workers, but most importantly he tried to capture in his murals the everyday beauty of Mexico’s labor in and out of the fields. These murals sprouted cultural change. Diego Rivera’s unique way of depicting Mexico is what made him grow popularity with indigenous people and Mexican people from all different economic class (Kettenmann…

    • 567 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Johannes Vermeer

    • 1541 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Vermeer, Johannes (1632 – 1675). Young Woman with a Water Pitcher c. 1662. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Visual…

    • 1541 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mayor of L.a

    • 509 Words
    • 3 Pages

    2. Two individuals I selected from the Voces Vivas in the museum I chose were David A. Siqeiros and Andres Laguna. David Siqeiros was a political muralist who expressed his social views in his artwork. He was a communist/socialist. Sieiros was born in December 29, 1896, in Chihuahua, Mexico. Much of his artwork reflected the oppression of Chicanos in the United States. The most famous mural he painted was the “America Tropical”. It was 82ft by 18ft and was done in La Placita Olvera. This mural reflected imperialism and the exploitation inflicted on the indigenous people of Latin America by the Spanish/European powers. There was much controversy with the mural and its meaning, it was later destroyed. The other person I selected was Andre Laguna, a Linotypist for La Opinion. Laguna was born in El Districto Federal De Mexico. A…

    • 509 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    At the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska there is an eighteenth century oil painting called Our Lady of Guadalupe, and like many Virgin paintings the artist is unknown. This painting features the iconic Virgin wearing a pink robe with a blue mantel, a crown, bowing her head and praying, and framing her are roses on each side. At the Denver Art Museum in Denver, Colorado is a painting titled Virgin of Guadalupe. Unlike most, this painting has an artist, Sebastián Salcedo. This is an oil on copper painting and it was dated in 1779. The Denver Art Museum provides an official description of the art piece, “Here the Virgin is surrounded by prophets, saints, angels, and seven miniature scenes of her miracles, all identified by inscriptions. At the bottom, Pope Benedict XIV and an Aztec princess (symbolizing Mexico) flank a landscape showing the Virgin’s church north of Mexico City” (para 2). At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City there is a collections of five artworks by Nicolás Enríquez made in 1773, one of which is a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe. This painting shows the classic portrait of the Virgin with four miniature scenes in each of the corner. In the top right and bottom right there is a scene of a man admiring the Virgin. In the top left there two men admiring the Virgin, and in the bottom left corner there is a scene of four men holding a fabric with the iconic image of the Virgin on it. In addition to the miniature scenes she is surrounded by clouds, and scattered roses. Lastly, at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco there is an oil painting titled Our Lady of Guadalupe. The artist is anonymous but it is known that this painting was made sometime during the eighteenth century. This painting is not the traditional image of the Virgin. She stands wearing a very…

    • 1324 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Final Paper

    • 1446 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Art is one aspect of the past that has carried on for decades. Art in any form may it be poetry, novels, and playwright, sculpting as well as painting, has been an outlet for generations and continues to be an outlet and a means for expression. This paper will discuss “ The Mona Lisa” one of Da Vinci’s most famous paintings, as well as another great painting, Antonio Veneziano’s “Virgin and Child”(c. 1380). Both paintings focus on the human form and exhibit many variations of styles from lines, shading, color and possible meanings behind the work.…

    • 1446 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Antonio de Palomino y Velasco’s painting, The Immaculate Conception (Fig 1), the characteristics of the artwork all lead us towards the interaction in the center of the painting. The work utilizes creative elements that include perspective, lighting and colors, and shapes to illustrate the importance of the interaction between the central characters in the foreground of the…

    • 566 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Menil Experience

    • 1291 Words
    • 4 Pages

    I started my journey walking to the right then into the very first room to the right. As I continued my on my way I came across Pablo Picasso’s Head of Woman 1943 and Woman in a Red Armchair 1929. As a child in elementary I remembered learning about him and being so curious in his work, how different he was compared to the norm. As I stood in front of each other these paintings I questioned what is art? I too could create something so similar however it would be only be after being inspired by his work. To whom does he give credit to for being so imaginative and willingness to be different and out of the ordinary? This is how he became PICSSO!…

    • 1291 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays