Diego Velazquez

At one level "Las Meninas" is a portrait of some of the members of the Spanish royal court in the middle of the 17th century. But if this were solely the case - and even taking into account Velazquez's talent as one of the greatest portraitists of the modern age - the painting would not continue to compel us as it does.

Velazquez painted more than simply his subjects. He also, of course, painted himself. And by including himself in this painting, he created a work that - according to a painter of the Spanish court who succeeded him - creates a theology of painting. Through the bending of perspective, through the inclusion of mystical elements such as five separate telescopes, through the reversal of subject and audience that takes place by the use of a magical mirror, Velazquez asks his audience - now as much as when the work was first created - to contemplate the nature of vision, to ask us what it is that we see when we look a

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ed him to be, but at his patrons and the most powerful people in the people, the ruling couple. Thus it may be possible that the canvas that he is working on is a portrait of them. It is certainly if not a literal representation of them than a work that is designed for their pleasure. It represents if not the king and queen themselves than a realization in some form of their wishes. It is thus impossible not to see the painting as an acknowledgement both of the power of representation but also of the power of patronage (Steinberg 48-51). The focus of the painting is on the two figures who, at least putatively, lie "outside" of it and are given life not in the image itself but only in the painted and perhaps mendacious reflection of a painted mirror - a very mediated form of reality indeed. These layers of reality, which correspond to layers of painted space and depth as well as to painted representations of power, are what give the painting its compelling nature. We understand when we look at it that we are indeed being given a lesson in the theology of painting. Velazquez is asking us not simply to acknowledge the importance of these particular individuals whom he has painted to a particular moment of Spanish history but to ack
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1848
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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