Spanish artist and court painter Diego Velazquez (Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez) is well-known throughout the globe. (Konstantinidis, 2012). He consistently employed Baroque painting methods, which included vivid, contrasting colors, acute chiaroscuro, and expressive postures. His pictures typically combine romanticism and impressionism with realism and naturalness. Like his well-known contemporaries Picasso and Dali, Velazquez portrayed individuals with enigmatic gazes on their faces that constantly attempted to say something, captivating anyone who glanced at the image. "Las Meninas" is among his most well-known compositions. This picture captures attracted to its plot. The basis of its interpretation served as an ancient Spanish historian Antonio Palomino, supplemented by some later works. According to Palomino, the painting depicts the artist himself, writing a portrait of King Philip IV and Anne of Austria. The King and the Queen themselves are not visible on the canvas; it is assumed that they are in front of the picture. It is indicated by their vague reflection in the mirror, in the back of the room. However, in the foreground of the picture everything that appears to the eyes of the posers is imprinted. The artist with a brush and a palette looks into his models, looking out from behind the easel. Next to him, in the middle of the room, stands Infanta Margarita, who was brought for entertaining the royal couple during the tiring sessions. Over her there are two ladies: one of them was dona Maria Augustina Sarmiento, the other was Isabel de Velasco. Behind Isabella in the half-darkness stands a woman in a monastic outfit, named dona Marcela de Ulloa, and the court rank, who was obliged to accompany the infant. The tiny dwarf Nicolas Pertusato pushes the huge dormant dog with his foot, and another dwarf Maria Barbola stands near. The action takes place in the spacious peace of the royal palace, the artist assigned to the workshop. In the distance, the figure of the marshal don José Nieto is visible. Throwing back the heavy curtain, he looks at the door, and the stream of sunlight pours into the dimly lit hall.
Among the works of Velazquez there are no pair portraits of the King Philip the Queen Annae, and there is no information about him in the ancient palace descriptions. On the canvas the artist allowed himself the liberty of showing his attachment to the Court, so he turned his canvas and painted himself next to Infanta, while he had to stand in front of her. In terms of interpretation, it is very likely that the pair portrait of the King Philip and the Queen Anne did not exist, and, additionally, it is likely that it never happened that Philip and Anne, looked in the mirror, when posing together. Infanta entertained them, Pertusato played with the dog, and the Marshal opened the curtain. Nonetheless, the basis of the canvas is poetry, not documentary. It is based on an artistic design, not photographic reproduction of a random situation. The topic of an artist behind the writing of the royal couple became the starting point for Velazquez. He put his attitude into his plan, expressed it with a peculiar structure of the picture, composition, space.
The same complex casuistry of exaltation and relegation underlies the image of a small infant. In this picture it belongs to the second most important place. Velazquez did a lot of work on the image of the infant, pale, sickly girls, tightened in fizzy, in non-childish and stiff poses. Portraits of the growing up children were sent to the relatives of the king and to the former imperial collections of the Vienna Museum. The consonance of colorful spots, tender as a fresh field bouquet, enlivened this picture. Nonetheless, Infanta is the most stagnant figure in the whole picture. At the same time, her impassiveness serves as a sign of her supreme dignity. However, due to the finely weighed composition, the little Infanta looks unusual. Infanta serves as the center of attention of all characters and occupies a central position in the picture. Her head is strictly in the middle of a huge canvas, in a perspective point of descent, and all this highlights her figure from her motley suite. However, this provision requires reservations and amendments. An exposed canvas cuts off the narrow strip of the picture on the left. Additionally, the picture should be considered as a span occupied by the figures, and in its limits the central place belongs not to the infant, but to the figure of the Marshal, who stopped at the door. He stands out with such a sharp silhouette against the light background of the door that the viewer’s eye, bypassing the figures of the foreground, involuntarily tends to it. It does not mean that the predominant role of the infantile is completely destroyed, but it makes its predominance half fictitious.
Nonetheless, in the picture the method that deprives the image of the infant of its royal halo is used. The whole picture is based on paired oppositions. It affects the two inclined women, according to the mirror and the door, and two mythological paintings on the back wall. Additionally, there is the similarity of the little Infanta and the dwarf Barbola. There is the same pointless look, the same ridiculous sedate, almost the same clothes on them. In portraits of that era pugs and bulldogs with their ugliness only shaded the human well-being of their owners. At the same time, the inclusion of dwarfs in the group portrait not only perpetuates them on a par with the highest figures, but also reduces these individuals from their pedestal.
There is the mirror and the door at the back of the room that are located strictly in the middle, as if on the sides of the main axis of the composition, directly over the figure of the infant. Additionally, it is noticeable that the pictures above them deviate somewhat from the axis to the left, so that they fall directly above the mirror with the reflection of the royal couple. At the same time, both of these paintings are built along the golden section and so harmonious that this second tectonic system lies over the first and includes geometric forms in the ratio of the figures. Nonetheless, if the vertical axis of the composition is shifted and therefore dynamic, then the horizontal divisions differ by a more relaxed character. First, the whole picture is divided into two equal parts; with the boundary between them is a narrow strip of wall between the paintings of the upper row and the door. The lower half of the picture is occupied by figures. The upper is free, more airy and easy. However, it turns out that each half of the picture is divided into two parts. The top of this division is the ceiling line; the bottom is the floor line, with both divisions being fairly faithful to the law of the golden section. This regularity can only be established by measurements that are not required by every spectator. But it can be argued that anyone who takes an unbiased view of the picture unconsciously feels the harmony of its proportions. When closing a narrow strip at the top of the picture and turn it into a square, it is easy to see how important these relationships are. The picture includes so many different people performing various actions. However, they all look like the time was stopped and only their looks still can move.
References
Konstantinidis, George (2012). “Las Meninas By Diego Velazquez”. Retrieved from http://www.velazquezlasmeninas.com/. Accessed 24 July, 2017.
