VELAZQUEZ
324
VELAZQUEZ
pictures, mythological scenes, and nudes; he was besides various portraits mentioned below, a large
almost alone in avoiding the scenes of martyrdoms and
scenes of torture so characteristic of Spanish painting.
These facts, however, point to no conclusion concern-
ing Velazquez' sentiments; for instance, it does not
follow that he was not a good Catholic, though it may
composition called the "Expulsion of the Moriscoes"
(1677) which unfortunately perished in the burning
of the Alcazar and not even an engraving of it remains.
But to the same period belongs an important picture,
the " Bacchus ", or " The Drunkards ' ' , dating doubtless
well be that he was not a mystic. — Compare the Olym- from 1628, and permitting us to judge of his progress.
pian, majestic serenity of his splendid "Crucifixion"
of the Prado, with the distorted, pale Christs of
Theotocopuli; the evident difference is that between
simple respect and religious passion. At bottom no
one is less unrestrained in his art than Velazquez, no
This, also, despite its mythological title, is a very real
subject : each face is a portrait, one of those portraits
of rustics and beggars, a company recruited from a
picturesque rabble, which became fashionable about
the beginning of the eighteenth century through the
one gives us fewer confidences nor fewer opportunities reaction against the idealist system, and which in
to read the secret of his heart. He felt no compulsion Spain furnished the material for the picaresque ro-
to produce something; he was not tormented by any manee. Otherwise the work is magnificent : each head,
thirst for glory or for self-expression. About 200 with its brick-dust tint and sunburnt skin, is superbly
canvases constitute his entire output, three-quarters forceful and brilliant; the bodies of the two half -clad
of them portraits, and the facility exhibited borders lads are splendid bits. But, as a whole, thepictureis
on the marvellous. Velazquez
seems to have had no imagina-
tion: his work is perhaps the
most remarkable existing ex-
ample of exclusively naturalistic
and realistic art. He never in-
vented anything; he never
showed any desire to seem
original; he only sought more
and more rapid and artistic
ways of expressing facts with-
out any intermingling of per-
sonality, painting with the same
indifference still life or an his-
torical scene, a king or a buf-
foon, the body of a young girl
or a monstrous dwarf; sweep-
ing the universe with his im-
perturbable gaze and embracing
without love or repugnance all
forms of hfe, whether beautiful
or hideous, like an impassive
mirror of nature. His whole
art, his whole ideal, all the in-
terior life and the progress of
this incomparable painter, lay
in a more and more perfect re-
production of things. It may
be said that, starting from a
pure realism, Velazquez reaches
in his last works a sort of impressionism or phenome-
nalism, and it is this which for forty years has con-
stituted him the foremost master of modern
painting.
His first works were those executed at Seville before his journey to Madrid and his first contact with the
Italian masters. These belong to the class of bode- transformations.
cloudy, lifeless, heavy, and
characterized by a crass sen-
suality.
At this juncture Velazquez made the acquaintance of Ru- bens, who had come to Madrid on a mission to the King of Spain. Rubens' prodigious activity stirred the apathy of the Andalusian artist; animated by curiosity and a new insight, the young man set out for Italy short 1}' after the departure of the Fleming. He stayed there a year, visited Venice and Rome, and returned by way of Naples, bringing back from the journey the fruit of contact with Italy and the antique, a new conception of the meaning of art. This was soon made manifest in two large pictures which ^'elazquez painted after his return, but had perhaps be- gun in Italy, "Joseph's Coat" (Hscorial) and the "Forge of Vulcan" (Prado) (c. 1631). As in "The Drunkards", the idea and characters, the subject and types, were, despite the title, of a popular nature; the "Forge" especially is a genre picture taken from life and but little altered. He here begins to employ that silverj- and exquisitely limpid tone which he constantly made more delicate and fluid, and which was thenceforth the great re- source of his poetry and the chief agent of his
gones, or pictures of still life, and are exclusively mere
studies. The young painter sou^tli I to cxjiress simple
objects, fruits and vegetables, kitchen utensils, jars,
and alcarnzas: he was studying, and he learned to
translate things directly, constructed his vocabulary
without troubling masters, and consulted only nature
itself. This was the method of Rembrandt's early
work, as also of Chardin's and, in more recent times,
of Cdzanne's. Most of the important pictures of this
early period are now outside of Spain. Such are
"The Water-Carrier of Seville" (c. 1618) (Apsley
House); the "Two at Breakfast" (same collection);
This progress of art in ^'e!azquez is shown chiefly
in the work of this period, "Christ at the Column"
(National Gallery, London) and the "Crucifixion" of
the Prado, which Theophile Gautier has compared
to a beautiful ivory crucifix on a backgi-ound of dark
velvet. But Velazquez' genius reached its grandest
expression at this time in the famous and magnificent
picture of "The Lances" (see Sp.mn, full-page illus-
tration). The subject is well known; the surrender of
Breda, the meeting of the two approaching forces,
Nassau followed by his Dutch gunners. Spinola at
the head of the picket of lances which gives its name
the "Three at Breakfast" (the Hermitage); the to the work, and the charming gesture of military
'Blind Woman", in the possession of Sir Francis
Cook; "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary "
(National Gallery, London), which, desiiite its title, is
a scene at an iiui with (wo coarse women; lastly the
"St. Peter" of the Beruete collection and the "Nativ-
ity" of the Prado ( 161(1), which is the author's largest
picture of this date and likewise the best of all.
During (he seven years (l(>23-29) which preceded the first journey to Italy we know that he painted.
comradeship, whereby the victor welcomes the van-
(luishetl. Two races face each other in a living
contrast of faces and costumes, an abundance of por-
traits. pictures(|uencss. and colour, a charm and bril-
liancy of cxprcssicms which perhajjs have never been
equalled id any school. The beauty of the horses,
the spirit of the arrangement, the apparent facility,
the grandeur of t he landscajjc, the quantity of ambient
air, the breadth of the colour scheme, the particular
