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 VELAZQUEZ

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VELAZQUEZ

sonorousness of tone, the stylo, at once natural and joyfully heroic, constitute this immense canvas a unique triumph at this period of Velazquez' work. The central group impersonates Spanish courtesy in its noblest and most chivalrous aspect. The impor- tance of the subject, the dimensions of the work, the incomparable successof plastic expression, picturesque and national interest combine to endow this work with a significance for Spain which some years later "The Night Watch" was to have for Holland, while for clearness of expression, value of colours and physi- ognomies, Velazquez had the advantage. \Vc may seek in vain in the seventeenth century for anything comparable to this historic canvas. Yet it may be asked is this Velazquez' masterpiece? Has it the immense virtuosity presumed for such a canvas as properly its own? Is not this decorative grandeur borrowed from Veronese or Titian? The very popu- larity of the work shows that it was according to a received formula, and if Velazquez had died imme- diately after "The Lances", he still would have been one of the foremost painters of the world, one of the most wonderful artists of the Venetian family, but we should not have known the most intimate and original side of his genius.

For twent}' years his portraits formed the chief part of his work. "He only know's how to paint heads", his enemies said of him. "They pay me a great compliment", replied the phlegmatic artist, "for I know of no one else who can do as much." The royal family, Philip IV, his brother the cardinal infante, his two wives, his yoiuig son Don Balthazar Carlos, the infanta Margaret, constitute nearly all the contribu- tions to his incomparable gallery; from 1624 to 1660 there are more than twenty portraits of the king himself, and it is doubtful if there exists elsewhere a similar artistic monograph or biography of the same individual; but, taken together with those of his circle — his brother, his wives, and his children — these portraits assume a new value and constitute a human document of the first order; they form the reconstruc- tion of a vanished circle, the natural history of the agony of a race. There is to be found nowhere a col- lection of portraits of such powerful and pathetic interest.

The portraits of Velazquez are distinguished for their ab.solute truth and the total absence of striving for effect. No royal personage, especially in the seventeenth century, was ever surrounded with less pomp; compared with those portraits Rigaud's "Louis XIV" seems theatrical and bombastic; Van Dyck's "Charles I", foppish, beruffled, and flippant. The black dress, black cloak, black shoes and stock- ings, the puritanical-looking (joUHa or Spani.sh collar, give to Velazciuez' portraits a strange severity; we feel the supreme dignity and distinction of a grandeur which is not inriobte<l to costumes or accessories; the prince shows himself and wins our recognition by his presence alone: Yo il Rry. A new stage is marked by the portraits of the king, the cardinal infante, and Balthazar Carlos in hunting costume, made about 10.3.5 for the decoration of a pavilion of the Torre del Pareja; between these three figures treated in ,a tone of bistre bordering on monochrome the artist has sought new relat ions and a sort of harmony expressed in the motif, the landscape, the atmosphere, and above all the choice of the tone. An exercise of the same kind, with immense progress in the orchestra- tion, consists of the portraits of the king, Olivarez. and the infante, on horseback, made to adorn a hall of the Prado. After so many masterpieces, it is still a question whether Velazquez ever produced anything happier or more complete than the splendid Infante Balth.azar Carlos astride his little chestnut horse, galloping bri.skly on an April morning on the bare and joyous slopes of the sierras.

Besides these royal series mention must be made of

Ferdinand of Austria Velazquez, the Prado

.some separate portraits, such as the "Lady in Black" of the Museum of Berlin, the full-length portrait of Admiral Pulido Pareja (1630, Longford Castle), and especially the face of the sculptor Martinez Mon- tanez (Madrid, c. 1645), one of the master's simplest and most extraordinary works. To this period (from 1640) belong two new series in which Vel.azquez' for- mula become s elaborated into his latest manner ai the qualities of ob.server, artist, and harmonist arc blended to pro- duce the unparal- leled masterpieces of 1655. These are the two series of "Dwiirfs" and "Infantes". The seven or eight pic- tures of dwarfs — the "Nino de Val- lecas" or the "Bobo de Coria" possessed by the Museum of Mad- rid — afford :i glimpse of I 1m familiar life of tin .Spanish Court In the seventeenlh century which nothing can re- place ; without them we could not imagine the hardness of this world of fe.asting and luxury which, to enhance its joy by contrast, suffered all the miseries of life to creep in its shadow. The unconscious cruelty which takes such pictures for granted is what Velazquez has in common with the ferocious side of his race and, for example, with the sanguinary art of Ribera. This collection of frightful studies, these pictures of cripples, goblins, abortions, might serve to illustrate a treatise on tera- tology. The painter shows neither affection nor disgust ; he has no repugnance to painting what nature is not ashamed of creating and what the sun sfiines upon. This gallery of monsters is, after all, one of his most fascinating creations.

In the parallel series of portraits — the infantas at Vienna, Madrid, and in the Louvre — the great paint- er's otherwise far from tender work is endowed with the peculiar characteristic derived from the presence of women. And yet a strange picture, indeed, of the eternal feminine is presented by these young figures, paralyzetl by etiquette, deformed by ridiculous and extravagant fashions. The artist, thenceforth the finished mastpr of his technic, and possessed of the language which was to be the element of his last works, confincfl himself to iilaying like a virtuoso W'ith details of reality which took his fancy. He no longer sought to imitate nature itself, to paint slavishly the substance of things, but was content to barely evoke the appearance and arr.ange on his canvas just what would suggest the whole impression. lie ceased to paint facts or, rather, the only facts which he depicted were his intimate sensations. For him, reality hence- forth consisted only in the reflexion of things per- ceived in his consciousness, and this abbreviated reflexion, this new and inner reality, was what he threw into his picture. Thus proceeding slowlv and from experience to experience, the painter passed from the mere copying of material facts to the most indi- vidual and original expression known in painting. In this period (1649-50) occurred the painter's second