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 VELAZQUEZ

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VELAZQUEZ

pictures, mythological scenes, and nudes; he was besides various portraits mentioned below, a large

almost alone in avoiding the scenes of martyrdoms and scenes of torture so characteristic of Spanish painting. These facts, however, point to no conclusion concern- ing Velazquez' sentiments; for instance, it does not follow that he was not a good Catholic, though it may

composition called the "Expulsion of the Moriscoes" (1677) which unfortunately perished in the burning of the Alcazar and not even an engraving of it remains. But to the same period belongs an important picture, the " Bacchus ", or " The Drunkards ' ', dating doubtless

well be that he was not a mystic. — Compare the Olym- from 1628, and permitting us to judge of his progress.

pian, majestic serenity of his splendid "Crucifixion" of the Prado, with the distorted, pale Christs of Theotocopuli; the evident difference is that between simple respect and religious passion. At bottom no one is less unrestrained in his art than Velazquez, no

This, also, despite its mythological title, is a very real subject : each face is a portrait, one of those portraits of rustics and beggars, a company recruited from a picturesque rabble, which became fashionable about the beginning of the eighteenth century through the

one gives us fewer confidences nor fewer opportunities reaction against the idealist system, and which in

to read the secret of his heart. He felt no compulsion Spain furnished the material for the picaresque ro-

to produce something; he was not tormented by any manee. Otherwise the work is magnificent : each head,

thirst for glory or for self-expression. About 200 with its brick-dust tint and sunburnt skin, is superbly

canvases constitute his entire output, three-quarters forceful and brilliant; the bodies of the two half -clad

of them portraits, and the facility exhibited borders lads are splendid bits. But, as a whole, thepictureis

on the marvellous. Velazquez seems to have had no imagina- tion: his work is perhaps the most remarkable existing ex- ample of exclusively naturalistic and realistic art. He never in- vented anything; he never showed any desire to seem original; he only sought more and more rapid and artistic ways of expressing facts with- out any intermingling of per- sonality, painting with the same indifference still life or an his- torical scene, a king or a buf- foon, the body of a young girl or a monstrous dwarf; sweep- ing the universe with his im- perturbable gaze and embracing without love or repugnance all forms of hfe, whether beautiful or hideous, like an impassive mirror of nature. His whole art, his whole ideal, all the in- terior life and the progress of this incomparable painter, lay in a more and more perfect re- production of things. It may be said that, starting from a pure realism, Velazquez reaches in his last works a sort of impressionism or phenome- nalism, and it is this which for forty years has con- stituted him the foremost master of modern painting.

His first works were those executed at Seville before his journey to Madrid and his first contact with the

Italian masters. These belong to the class of bode- transformations.

cloudy, lifeless, heavy, and characterized by a crass sen- suality.

At this juncture Velazquez made the acquaintance of Ru- bens, who had come to Madrid on a mission to the King of Spain. Rubens' prodigious activity stirred the apathy of the Andalusian artist; animated by curiosity and a new insight, the young man set out for Italy short 1}' after the departure of the Fleming. He stayed there a year, visited Venice and Rome, and returned by way of Naples, bringing back from the journey the fruit of contact with Italy and the antique, a new conception of the meaning of art. This was soon made manifest in two large pictures which ^'elazquez painted after his return, but had perhaps be- gun in Italy, "Joseph's Coat" (Hscorial) and the "Forge of Vulcan" (Prado) (c. 1631). As in "The Drunkards", the idea and characters, the subject and types, were, despite the title, of a popular nature; the "Forge" especially is a genre picture taken from life and but little altered. He here begins to employ that silverj- and exquisitely limpid tone which he constantly made more delicate and fluid, and which was thenceforth the great re- source of his poetry and the chief agent of his

gones, or pictures of still life, and are exclusively mere studies. The young painter sou^tli I to cxjiress simple objects, fruits and vegetables, kitchen utensils, jars, and alcarnzas: he was studying, and he learned to translate things directly, constructed his vocabulary without troubling masters, and consulted only nature itself. This was the method of Rembrandt's early work, as also of Chardin's and, in more recent times, of Cdzanne's. Most of the important pictures of this early period are now outside of Spain. Such are "The Water-Carrier of Seville" (c. 1618) (Apsley House); the "Two at Breakfast" (same collection);

This progress of art in ^'e!azquez is shown chiefly in the work of this period, "Christ at the Column" (National Gallery, London) and the "Crucifixion" of the Prado, which Theophile Gautier has compared to a beautiful ivory crucifix on a backgi-ound of dark velvet. But Velazquez' genius reached its grandest expression at this time in the famous and magnificent picture of "The Lances" (see Sp.mn, full-page illus- tration). The subject is well known; the surrender of Breda, the meeting of the two approaching forces, Nassau followed by his Dutch gunners. Spinola at the head of the picket of lances which gives its name

the "Three at Breakfast" (the Hermitage); the to the work, and the charming gesture of military

'Blind Woman", in the possession of Sir Francis Cook; "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary " (National Gallery, London), which, desiiite its title, is a scene at an iiui with (wo coarse women; lastly the "St. Peter" of the Beruete collection and the "Nativ- ity" of the Prado ( 161(1), which is the author's largest picture of this date and likewise the best of all.

During (he seven years (l(>23-29) which preceded the first journey to Italy we know that he painted.

comradeship, whereby the victor welcomes the van- (luishetl. Two races face each other in a living contrast of faces and costumes, an abundance of por- traits. pictures(|uencss. and colour, a charm and bril- liancy of cxprcssicms which perhajjs have never been equalled id any school. The beauty of the horses, the spirit of the arrangement, the apparent facility, the grandeur of t he landscajjc, the quantity of ambient air, the breadth of the colour scheme, the particular