Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/521

 In Castile. 491 Amongst his historic landscapes we must especially mention the Visit of S. Antony to S. Paul the Hermit. In portrait-painting Velazquez shares the glory of Titian, Van Dyck and Rembrandt. He has surpassed all his fellow-countrymen, and is scarcely equalled by his great rivals in other schools. Nothing can surpass his skill in depicting the human form, or his boldness in seizing it under its most difficult aspects : for example, the eques- trian portrait of his royal friend, Philip IV., the queen Elizabeth of France, and Marian of Austria, the young Infanta Margaret, and the Infante Don Balthazar, some- times proudly handling an arquebus of his own height, or else galloping on a spirited Andalusian pony. The Count- duke of Olivarez, another protector of the artist, is repre- sented on horseback and clothed in armour; and in this picture, besides an equal amount of resemblance and life, there is also an energy and commanding grandeur which the painter could not give to the indolent monarch. Unlike the Italians and all his fellow-countrymen, Velazquez did not like to treat sacred subjects. He has consequently left scarcely any picture of that subject. As for the profane pictures, genre paintings in their subjects, but historic by their dimensions and style, they are sufficiently numerous to satisfy the eager curiosity of the admirers of Velazquez. There are five principal ones in the museum at Madrid. That which is called Las Hilanderas (the tapestry weavers) shows the interior of a manufactory. In an immense room, only dimly lighted in the hottest time of the day, workwomen are occupied with the different employments of their trade, whilst some ladies are being shown some of the completed work. Velazquez, who usually placed his model in the open air