2 of

You are browsing the full text of the article: Velasquez at the Royal Academy

 

 

Click here to go back to the list of articles for Issue: Volume: 1 of The Art Review

 

The Art Review  Volume 1   Issue: 2  February 1890  Page: 36
 
 Velasquez at the Royal Academy
Profiles: click on name to see profile
 
Velázquez, Diego [1599-1660. Spain. Painter]
Zoom:
 100% 200% Full Size
Brightness:
Contrast:
Saturation:
 

Please note there is more than one article on this page
For he hath built his lasting monument
Within the hearts and in the minds of men:
The Powers of Life around its base have bent
The Stream of Memory: our furthest ken
Beholds no reach, no lim it to its rise:
It hath foundations sure; it shall not pass;
The ruin of Time upon it none shall see,
Till the last wind shall wither the last grass,
Nay, while man’s Hopes, Fears, Dreams, and Agonies
Uplift his soul to Immortality.

William Sharp


VELASQUEZ AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY

IT must be pleasing to every lover of art to find Velasquez so well represented this year at Burlington House. There are eight of his paintings exhibited, and all of them of a high order.

It is gratifying to think that Great Britain is fortunate enough to possess nearly ten times as many works of this master as any country beside his own. This speaks not a little for the taste of our forefathers.

He was emphatically a Court painter, enjoying the friendship and patronage of Philip IV for thirty-six years. In his youth he had, however, confined himself chiefly to still-life painting, saying that he ‘would rather be the first painter of common things than second in higher art’ and it was upon these ‘common things’ that he based the training which enabled him to become famous in later years. His portrait of Gongora, the poet, at Madrid, first drew the notice of Olivarez, the minister, to his work, and thence he rose to Court favour. Of his many portraits of Philip we possess a fine example in the National Gallery. The majority of his paintings on view at the Royal Academy are portraits of Royal personages. He seems to have possessed an extraordinary power of representing the dignity of the Spanish character. The haughty pride of their nobility looks out from every canvas. He was a kingly painter of kings. There is none of the affectation of pose and gesture that so often mar the work of Vandyke — the inevitable hand, for instance, — none of the conventionality of dress with which Vandyke was so often unable to cope. The figures of Velasquez stand easy in pose, graceful in gesture. In these unecclesiastical times one may be allowed to express one's pleasure that his genius was not, like that of so many others, entirely controlled by the influence of Mother Church. It is to be remembered that he executed several sacred pictures, noble in simplicity, of which the Crucifixion which hangs in the gallery at Madrid is perhaps the finest example. Sent by Philip iv. to collect works of art in Italy, he was enabled to visit the country he had longed to see, and there to study art untrammelled by the stiff rules of Court etiquette. During his sojourn there he seems to have assimilated much that was best in Italian art, and at the same time his individuality was so great that the influence of Italy, powerful as it has been on other painters, has scarcely affected his style in any degree. And after all we may be thankful that he was not from thenceforth relegated to the exclusive production of Madonnas and children. Had it been so, perhaps we might never have had the Venus and Cupid, the chief ornament of the present Exhibition; she would have sheathed her shapely form in that celestial blue which appears to have been the livery of the saints feminine. In this picture (135) the artist has evidently set himself to make an elaborate nude study of a graceful woman lying on a couch with her back to the spectator, with the result that he has given us one of the most superb pieces of flesh-painting which the world has ever seen. There is no need to regard her from a distance in order to appreciate every dimple in her form, or the patient pose of the Cupid who holds the mirror at which she smiles. She can be approached to within a foot of the canvas without losing the modelling of every contour. There is something in the treatment and colouring of the face reflected in the mirror which reminds one irresistibly of the methods of a later master, Jean Francis Millet. It has, moreover, a simplicity almost rustic, which strengthens the comparison, although its character does not quite realise the expectation raised by her own refined head. There is but one other Venus by his hand. The influence of the Spanish Inquisition was probably a powerful check in this direction, whereas in Italy there was a greater freedom of thought generated by the republican spirit of such cities as Florence and Venice.

The ‘Portrait of a Lady' (141) is a fine piece of character drawing. One wishes to know who this clever-looking woman was, and what part she played in the history of those times. Doubtless she was a person of importance, for her grave and serious look and rich dress denote authority accompanied by wealth. It is to be regretted that another portrait of the same unknown lady holding a fan in her hand, in Sir R. Wallace's
The Art Review  Volume 1   Issue: 2  February 1890  Page: 37
 
 Velasquez at the Royal Academy
Zoom:
 100% 200% Full Size
Brightness:
Contrast:
Saturation:
 
collection, is not exhibited for comparison with it.

In an eminently practical age like the present it is not unnatural that such realistic painting as his should have its due meed of appreciation. Perhaps excellence of technique and realism of expression have never before been so worshipped by artists as at the present time, and Velasquez is admittedly the greatest master of technique that ever lived. The possession of one quality, however, need not exclude others, and it is somewhat surprising to find that exception has lately been taken in a high quarter to Velasquez as being lacking in imagination. There is something more in his painting, we think, than mere truthful representation of fact. He displays intellectual qualities of a higher and more subtle kind in his simplicity of design, his scheme of colour, his dignity of pose, and his grasp of subject than is required by a mere adherence to facts, however complete. And his insight into character enabled him to bring into his portraits a personal as well as a national individuality. He never descended into commonplace. Such faculties in an artist denote a suffusion of idealism both in his aims and methods. Compare, for example, the two portraits of Mariana of Austria, the one by Juan del Mazo, the son-in-law and follower in style of Velasquez (129), the other by Velasquez himself (132). In the former we have an undoubtedly well-painted portrait of a woman, but it would take a person of more than ordinary discernment to conjecture what manner of woman she was. But a glance at the same woman portrayed by the master hand of Velasquez reveals a splendid arrangement of colour, in which the whole character of the queen is laid bare. The proud direct look is of one accustomed to command, and the amplitude of her coiffure, stiff though it be, gives no suggestion of the grotesque. The personality of a sovereign speaks in the picture. Again, the ordinary observer sees, for instance, that the tanned glove in the portrait of Adrian Pareja (133) is painted with marvellous accuracy, and he at once rushes to the conclusion that the artist is nothing but a realist, and altogether devoid of ideality. He entirely forgets that the highest form of realism involves a mental conception beyond what is actually seen by the painter, and that in order to produce fine work he must bring to bear upon it something more than the reproduction of what is visible to his eye at a given moment. We are quite willing to admit, if comparison is to be made with such painters as Titian and Turner, that Velasquez does not exemplify an ideality as expressed by them; but if the term ‘ideality’ is held to include, and we think it does, that quality which embodies an immediate grasp of the character of the sitter in its largest sense, and the masterly interpretation of it, then we claim for Velasquez ideality of the highest order. It is easy to conceive that this extraordinary power of reality may obscure for many his ideality, but it would be mistaken to at once arrive at the conclusion that because a great painter invests his subject with a lifelike reality, that therefore the highest qualities of his truth are not the outcome of his imagination, and his imagination only.

Then there are the four magnificent portraits of Don Balthazar Carlos (134, 136, 137, 138). Doubtless a man of less imagination than he would have seen nothing in this scion of a royal house but a sickly youngster with a pompous affectation of kingly dignity, but it is he who has raised him into an object of delight to the scholar and the artist. There is an individuality in these four portraits, taken at different times, which shows the same embodiment of ideal power. They all portray the youth as a prince, in spite of a face by no means handsome. In one portrait especially (138), as he sits on his horse with Olivarez the minister standing by, there is all the conscious pride of good horsemanship displayed in the presence of his parents; who are looking on from a balcony on the right. To this semi-heroic subject, however, the background of quiet grey wall and tiled roof is as singularly appropriate as it is true to nature. Another portrait (137) represents the prince clad in armour, and looking almost defiantly out of the picture. The third (134) is taken at an earlier age, and the fourth (136) is a replica of the equestrian portrait already described. It is difficult to compare one with another of these four hanging side by side, they are all so excellent. Though they mark well the gradual development of the mind as well as the body, it is impossible not to recognise the same child in each. Perhaps the most conventional of all these portraits is that of Adrian Pareja, the admiral of the fleet in New Spain. Black-haired, and clad in sombre hue, he stands at the corner of a house, beyond which are seen the ships which denote his profession. He scarcely seems robust enough to satisfy an Englishman’s notion of a sea-dog, but there is an almost piratical curl in his black moustache, and a look in his eye which must have made his enemies tremble. It is a pity that we have not as a companion picture the superb portrait by Velasquez of Olivarez, who first befriended the painter, and to whom Velasquez adhered in firm friendship after the downfall of the minister. It is said that the King suffered this intimacy to continue purely out of respect to the painter.

Although we as a country are rich in Velasquez, it is to Madrid that his admirers must go to appreciate him thoroughly. Those who are not able to go so far can only get an idea of his power through the etchings of R. W. Macbeth, A. R. A., of three of his greatest works — ‘The Spears, or the Surrender of Breda’, in which there is a marvellously painted landscape; ‘The Tapestry Weavers’, an effort of the highest imagination; and the portrait of Alonzo Cano.

An exceedingly fine copy of his ‘Maids of Honour’ is also to be seen in the Diploma Gallery by John Phillip, in whose work we can trace the influence of Velasquez.

From a public point of view it is to be regretted that