The Las Meninas
The Las Meninas is a painting by the famous painter Diego Velazquez that was completed in 1656. In reality, it is regarded as one of the most interesting and best paintings that test the audience's and illusion's perceptions. Las Meninas is set in Madrid's Velazquez studio. In Diego's drawing Las Meninas, he creates a number of focal points.
The Infanta
The Infanta, clad elegantly with her maids of honor, one on the left and one on the right, forms the first and central focal point. The Infanta is brightly illuminated, and it appears at the center of the composition of the painting linked by two ladies protracted. Two maids wait upon the Infanta, who is the princess, and this is an exciting view with the author using light to draw the viewers to this area.
The Right Side of the Princess
The second focal point in the painting Las Meninas is the right side of the Princess where there is a dog and a dwarf. The Infanta at this focal point faces outside the painting looking in the direction of the viewers in what seems to be a scene where the king and the queen are arriving in the room. This focal point is reflected in a mirror that is on the black wall, and one can notice Margarita's bodyguard and the chaperone.
Velazquez Himself
The third focal point of the painting is Velazquez himself, and he is painted at a stand on the left-hand side of the Las Meninas painting. From this point, the viewers can recognize a set of keys that are hanging on his belt. This is a clear sign that Diego Velazquez was a significant person in the palace to be merited with the keys of the offices and the court. In addition, in the painting, Velazquez is seen with a red cross on his chest, and this is a symbol that he was a member of the Order of Santiago. Nonetheless, the king himself and not Diego Velazquez added this part.
The Background
The fourth focal point in Las Meninas is in the background of the painting where a man is standing in the doorway. He is presumed to be Don Jose Nieto Velazquez, who was the Spanish Queen's Chamberlain at that time. Nieto is standing on the stairs with his right knee bent, and no one knows whether he was leaving the scene or coming in.
There is also an impressive figure of interest, which is the mirror that is situated on the back wall of the studio. This mirror shows a replication of two figures who are recognized to be the Spanish queen and king basing on the other paintings by Diego Velazquez and they are thought to be the primary focus or subjects of the Las Meninas painting. Here, Diego uses overlapping shapes and illuminating light to draw the attention of the viewers to this focal point.
A lot is going on with the Las Meninas painting with various focal points, and it has been an uphill task to determine the real subject of the painting. Some people assume it is the royal couple who are the king and the queen, the princess, the audience, and even Velazquez himself. To date, critics are still in disagreement over the main viewpoint of Diego's painting, as the painting seems to depict a work-in-progress.
A Subtlety: The Marvelous Sugar Baby by Kara Walker
A Subtlety is a sculpture by an African American artist Kara Walker built in an abandoned sugar factory in Domino. It features an exposed black woman with a protruding vulva, visible breasts, and large rear legs coated with sugar. Walker uses the scale in A Subtlety: The Marvelous Sugar Baby to imitate the carved sugar centerpiece present on the rich people tables and the tables of the plantation owners' decorations. Sugar was a rare commodity that could only be found among the rich people and was obtained through slave labor.
In addition, Walker coats the sculpture with refined sugar to suggest the pressure mounted on the former slaves to assimilate into the American society. The sugar industry highly relied on slave labor from African Americans, and the slaves were forced to work under harsh conditions and torture. Therefore, Walker uses her sculpture to express the life of the slaves in the sugar refinery.
Another idea Walker represents in the sculpture is making it appear large and with a sphinx shape. With this, Walker draws attention to the degree of slavery, and how the slaves suffered. Using the sphinx image is an obvious thorn in the eyes of the sugar industry that enslaved millions of people. Finally, Walker uses sugar and makes it gigantic and for this, she underscores the cost of the sugar industry.
