Las Meninas Essay Example For Students

Las Meninas Essay Artist Diego Velà ¡zquezYear 1656Medium Oil on canvasDimensions 318 cm Ãâ€" 276 cm (125.2 in Ãâ€" 108.7 in) This is one of Velà ¡zquez`s largest paintings and among those in which he made most effort to create a complex and credible composition that would convey a sense of life and reality while enclosing a dense network of meanings. The artist achieved his intentions and  Las Meninas  became the only work to which the writer on art Antonio Palomino devoted a separate section in his history of Spanish painters of 1724, entitling it  In which the most illustrious work by Don Diego Velà ¡zquez is described.  Since then the painting has never lost its status as a masterpiece. From Palomino we know that it was painted in 1656 in the Cuarto del Prà ­ncipe in the Alcà ¡zar in Madrid, which is the room seen in the work. He also identifies most of the figures of the court servants grouped around the Infanta Margarita, who is attended by two of the Queen`s meninas or maids-ofhonour: Marà ­a Agustina Sarmiento and Isabel de Velasco. In addition to that group, we also see the artist himself working on a large canvas, the dwarves Mari Bà ¡rbola and Nicolasito Pertusato, the latter provoking a mastiff, and the lady-in-waiting Marcela de Ulloa next to a  guardadamas  (attendant), with the chamberlain Josà © Nieto standing in the doorway in the background. Reflected in the mirror are the faces of Philip IV and Mariana of Austria, the Infanta`s parents who are watching the scene taking place. The figures inhabit a space that is modelled not just through the laws of scientific perspective but also through aerial perspective. In the definition of this space the multiplication of the light sources plays an important role. The painting shows a large room in the  Royal Alcazar of Madrid  during the reign of King  Philip IV of Spain, and presents several figures, most identifiable from the Spanish court, captured, according to some commentators, in a particular moment as if in a  snapshot. Some look out of the canvas towards the viewer, while others interact among themselves. The young  Infanta Margaret Theresa  is surrounded by her entourage of  maids of honour,  chaperone, bodyguard, two dwarfs and a dog. Just behind them, Velà ¡zquez portrays himself working at a large canvas. Velà ¡zquez looks outwards, beyond the pictorial space to where a viewer of the painting would stand. In the background there is a mirror that reflects the upper bodies of the king and queen. They appear to be placed outside the picture space in a position similar to that of the viewer, although some scholars have speculated that their image is a reflection from the painting Velà ¡zquez is shown working on. Las Meninas  has long been recognised as one of the most important paintings in  Western art history. The  Baroque  painter  Luca Giordano  said that it represents the theology of painting and in 1827 the president of the  Royal Academy of Arts  Sir Thomas Lawrence  described the work in a letter to his successor  David Wilkie  as the true philosophy of the art. More recently, it has been described as Velà ¡zquezs supreme achievement, a highly self-conscious, calculated demonstration of what painting could achieve, and perhaps the most searching comment ever made on the possibilities of the easel painting. References En.wikipedia.org. (2017).  Las Meninas. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Meninas. Museodelprado.es. (2017).  Las Meninas The Collection Museo Nacional del Prado. Available at: https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/las-meninas/9fdc7800-9ade-48b0-ab8b-edee94ea877f.