the convent of San Placido. It is a work of tremendous power and of great originality, the moment chosen being that immediately after death. The Saviour’s head hangs on his breast and a mass of dark tangled hair conceals part of the face. The beautiful form is projected against a black and hopeless sky from which light has been blotted out. The figure stands absolutely alone, without any accessory. The skull and serpent described by Sir William Stirling-Maxwell were added by some pious bungler at a much later date. The picture was lengthened to suit its place in an oratory; but this addition has since been removed. To the same period belongs the great “Boar Hunt” at the National Gallery, a magnificent work in spite of some restorations. The smaller “Boar Hunt” in the Wallace collection is from the brush of Mazo; and the “Conversation, a Group of Thirteen Persons,” at the Louvre, a picture which in conception has much in common with these hunting scenes, probably owes its origin to the same artist. A. de Beruete emphatically denies Velazquez’s authorship of this much belauded picture, which he describes as a “mediocre imitation, probably by Mazo.”
Velazquez’s son-in-law Mazo had succeeded him as usher in 1634, and he himself had received steady promotion in the royal household, receiving a pension of 500 ducats in 1640, increased to 700 in 1648, for portraits painted and to be painted, and being appointed inspector of works in the palace in 1647. Philip now entrusted him with the carrying out of 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 to proceed to Italy to make purchases. Accompanied by his faithful slave Pareja, whom he taught to be a good painter, he sailed from Malaga in 1649, landing at Genoa, and proceeding thence by Milan to Venice, buying Titians, Tintorettos and Veroneses as he went. A curious conversation which he is said to have had with Salvator Rosa is reported by Boschini,[1] in which the Spaniard with perfect frankness confesses his want of appreciation of Raphael and his admiration of Titian, “first of all Italian men.” It seems a possible story, for Velazquez bought according to his likings and painted in the spirit of his own ideals. At Modena he was received with much favour by the duke, and doubtless here he painted the portrait of the duke at the Modena gallery and two splendid portraits which now adorn the Dresden gallery, for these pictures came from the Modena sale of 1746. They presage the advent of the painter’s third and latest manner, a noble example of which is the great portrait of Innocent X. in the Doria palace at Rome, to which city Velazquez now proceeded. There he was received with marked favour by the pope, who presented him with a medal and gold chain. Of this portrait, thought by Sir Joshua Reynolds to be the finest picture in Rome, Palomino says that Velazquez took a copy to Spain. There exist several in different galleries, some of them possibly studies for the original or replicas painted for Philip. One of the most remarkable is that in Apsley House, exhibited in Burlington House in 1887. The modelling of the stern impassive face comes near to perfection, so delicate are the gradations in the full light; all sharpness of outline has disappeared; and the features seem moulded by the broad and masterly brushwork. When closely examined, the work seems coarse, yet at the proper distance it gives the very essence of living flesh. The handling is rapid but unerring. Velazquez had now reached the manera abreviada, as the Spaniards call this bolder style. This is but another way of saying that his early and laborious studies and his close observation of nature had given to him in due time, as to all great painters, the power of representing what he saw by simpler means and with more absolute truth. At Rome he painted also a portrait of his servant Pareja, probably the picture of Lord Radnor’s collection, which procured his election into the academy of St Luke. Philip was now wearying for his return; accordingly, after a visit to Naples, where he saw his old friend Ribera, he returned to Spain by Barcelona in 1651, taking with him many pictures and 300 pieces of statuary, which he afterwards arranged and catalogued 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 Mariana of Austria, whom Velazquez now painted in many attitudes. He was specially chosen by the king to fill the high office of “aposentador major,” which imposed on him the duty of looking after the quarters occupied by the court whether at home or in their journeys—a responsible function, which was no sinecure and 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. The dwarf “Don Antonio el Inglés” (the Englishman) with his dog, “Aesop,” “Menippus” and “the Sculptor Montañes,” all in the Madrid gallery, show his surest and freest manner. To these may be added the charming portraits of the royal children in the Louvre and Vienna, among the choicest of his works. It is one of these infantas, Margarita Maria, the eldest daughter of the new queen, that is the subject of the well-known picture “Las Meniñas” (the Maids of Honour), 1062, in the Madrid gallery, painted in 1656, where the little lady holds court, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting, her dwarfs and her mastiff, while Velazquez is seen standing at his easel. This is the finest portrait we have of the great painter. It is a face of much dignity, power and sweetness—like his life, equable and serene, unruffled by care. “Las Meniñas” was the picture of which Luca Giordano said that it was the “theology of painting,” another way of expressing the opinion of Sir Thomas Lawrence, that this work is the philosophy of art, so true is it in rendering the desired effect. The result is there, one knows not by what means, as if by a first intention without labour, absolutely right. The story is told that the king painted the red cross of Santiago on the breast of the painter, as it appears to-day on the canvas. Velazquez did not, however, receive the honour till 1659, three years after the execution of this work. Even the powerful king of Spain could not make his favourite a belted knight without a commission to inquire into the purity of his lineage on both sides of the house. The records of this commission have been found among the archives of the order of Santiago by M. Villaamil. Fortunately the pedigree could bear scrutiny, as for generations the family was found free from all taint of heresy, from all trace of Jewish or Moorish blood and from contamination by trade or commerce. The difficulty connected with the fact that he was a painter was got over by his being painter to the king and by the declaration that he did not sell his pictures. But for this royal appointment, which enabled him to escape the censorship of the Inquisition, we should never have had his splendid “Venus and Cupid,” formerly belonging to Mr Morritt of Rokeby Hall and bought by the National Art Collections Fund for £45,000 for the National Gallery in 1905. It is painted in his latest manner and is worthy of comparison with Titian.[2] There were in truth but two patrons of art in Spain—the church and the art-loving king and court. Murillo was the artist favoured by the churchy while Velazquez was patronized by the crown. One difference, however, deserves to be noted. Murillo, who toiled for a rich and powerful church, left scarcely sufficient means to pay for his burial, while Velazquez lived and died in the enjoyment of good salaries and pensions. Yet on occasions Philip gave commissions for religious pictures to Velazquez—among others, and belonging to this later period, the “Coronation of the Virgin” (Madrid, 1056), splendid in colour—a harmony of red, blue and grey—but deficient in religious feeling and dignity. It was painted for the oratory of the queen, doubtless Mariana, in the palace at Madrid. Another royal commission for the hermitage of Buen Retiro was the “St Anthony the Abbot and St Paul the Hermit,” painted in 1659, the landscape
- ↑ See Stirling-Maxwell’s Velazquez and his Works, p. 161.
- ↑ Some uncertainties in the proprietorial history of this picture have led to considerable discussion concerning its authenticity. But the suggestion that Mazo’s signature could be detected on it was repudiated by an expert committee in 1910 who carefully examined the painting.
