Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/151

Rh VELAZQUEZ 135 But, besides the forty portraits of Philip which are known, we have portraits of other members of the royal family, of Philip s first wife, Isabella of Bourbon, and her children, especially of her eldest son, Don Baltasar Carlos, of whom, besides those already mentioned, there is a beau tiful full length in a private room at Buckingham Palace. Cavaliers, soldiers, churchmen, and poets of the court, as for example the Quevedo at Apsley House (Burlington Plouse, 1887), sat to the painter and, even if forgotten by history, will live on his canvas. The admirable Pareja of Lord Radnor s collection (Burlington House, 1873) is said to have been taken by Philip for the living man. It has been remarked that the Spaniards have always been chary of committing to canvas the portraits of their beauti ful women, Queens and infantas may be painted and ex hibited, but ladies rarely. One wonders who the beautiful woman can be that adorns the gallery of Sir Richard Wal lace, the splendid brunette so unlike the usual fair-haired female sitters to Velazquez. She belongs to this period of his work, to the ripeness of his middle period. Instinct with life, her bosom seems to heave and the blood to pul sate through her veins. The touch is firm but free, showing the easy strength of the great master. Rarely has flesh been painted with such a glow, yet with such reserve. This picture was one of the ornaments of the Bethnal Green collection. But, if we have few ladies of the court of Philip, we have in great plenty his buffoons and dwarfs. Even these deformed creatures attract our sympathy as we look at their portraits by Velazquez, who, true to his nature, treats them gently and kindly, as in El Primo (the Favourite), whose intelligent face and huge folio with ink bottle and pen by his side show him to be a wiser and better-educated man than many of the gallants of the court. El Bobo de Coria, El Nino de Vallecas, and Pab- lillos, a buffoon evidently acting a part, all belong to this middle period. From these commissioned portraits of the menials of the court it is pleasant to turn to one of the greatest of historical works, the Surrender of Breda, often known as Las Lanzas, from the serried rank of lances breaking the sky, which is believed to have been painted about 1647. It represents the moment when the van quished Justin of Nassau in front of his Dutch troops is submissively bending as he offers to his conqueror Spinola the keys of the town, which, with courteous grace, the victor refuses to accept, as he lays his hand gently on the shoulder of his defeated foe. 1 Behind Spinola stand the Spanish troops bearing their lances aloft, while beyond is a long stretch of the Low Country, dotted with fortifica tions and giving the impression of vast space and distance. The picture is full of light and air and is perhaps the finest example of the silvery bluish style of Velazquez. In con ception it is as fine as in execution, and one looks in vain for a trace of &quot; the malicious pencil &quot; which Sir William Stirling-Maxwell discerned in the treatment of Justin and his gallant Dutchmen. The greatest of the religious paintings by Velazquez belongs also to this middle period, the Christ on the Cross (Madrid gallery, No. 1055). Palomino says it was painted in 1638 for the convent of San Placido. It is a work of tremendous power and of great originality, the moment chosen being that immediately after death. The Saviour s head hangs on his breast and a mass of dark tangled hair conceals part of the face. The beautiful form is projected against a black and hopeless sky from which light has been blotted out. The figure stands absolutely alone without any accessory. The skull and serpent described by Sir William Stirling-Maxwell were added by some pious bungler 1 This gracious attitude is also employed by Velazquez in a picture in Stafford House (representing the reception of St Francis Borgia by Loyola), at a much later date. The picture was lengthened to suit its place in an oratory ; but this addition has since been removed. Velazquez s son-in-law Mazo had succeeded him as usher in 1634, and he himself had received steady promotion in the royal household, receiving a pension of 500 ducats in 1640, increased to 700 in 1648, for portraits painted and to be painted, and being appointed inspector of works in the palace in 1647. Philip now entrusted him with the carrying out of a design on which he had long set his heart, the founding of an academy of art in Spain. Rich in pictures, Spain was weak in statuary, and Velazquez was commissioned to proceed to Italy to make purchases. Ac companied by his faithful slave Pareja, whom he taught to be a good painter, he sailed from Malaga in 1649, land ing at Genoa, and proceeding thence by Milan to Venice, buying Titians, Tintorettos, and Veroneses as he went. A curious conversation which he is said to have had with Salvator Rosa is reported by Boschini, 2 in which the Spaniard with perfect frankness confesses his want of appreciation of Raphael and his admiration of Titian, &quot; first of all Italian men.&quot; It seems a possible story, for Velazquez bought according to his likings and painted in the spirit of his own ideals. At Modena he was received with much favour by the duke, and doubtless here he painted the two splendid portraits which now adorn the Dresden gallery, for these pictures came from the Modena sale of 1746. They presage the advent of the painter s third and latest manner, a noble example of which is the great portrait of Innocent X. in the Doria palace at Rome, to which city Velazquez now proceeded. There he was received with marked favour by the pope, who presented him with a medal and gold chain. Of this portrait, thought by Sir Joshua Reynolds to be the finest picture in Rome, Palomino says that Velazquez took a copy to Spain. There exist several in different galleries, some of them possibly studies for the original or replicas painted for Philip. One of the most remarkable is that in Apsley House, exhibited in Burlington House in 1887. The modelling of the stern impassive face comes near to per fection, so delicate are the gradations in the full light ; all sharpness of outline has disappeared ; and the features seem moulded by the broad and masterly brushwork. When closely examined, the work seems coarse, yet at the proper distance it gives the very essence of living flesh. The handling is rapid but unerring. Velazquez had now reached the manera abreviada, as the Spaniards call this bolder style. This is but another way of saying that his early and laborious studies and his close observation of nature had given to him in due time, as to all great painters, the power of representing what he saw by simpler means and with more absolute truth. At Rome he painted also a portrait of his servant Pareja, probably the picture of Lord Radnor s collection, which procured his election into the Academy of St Luke. Philip was now wearying for his return ; accordingly, after a visit to Naples, where he saw his old friend Ribera, he returned to Spain by Barcelona in 1651, taking with him many pictures and 300 pieces of statuary, which he afterwards arranged and catalogued for the king. Undraped sculpture was, how ever, abhorrent to the Spanish Church, and after Philip s death these works gradually disappeared. Isabella of Bourbon had died in 1644, and the king had married Maria Anna of Austria, whom Velazquez now painted in many attitudes. He was specially chosen by the king to fill the high office of &quot;aposentador major,&quot; which imposed on him the duty of looking after the quarters occupied by the court whether at home or in their journeys a responsible function, which was no sinecure and inter See Stirling s Velazquez and his Works, p. 161.