In looking at these two pictures the spectator is especially struck by the fact that they betray no trace of the influence of the Italians. Velazquez remained true to himself. At Rome he also painted the two beautiful landscapes of the gardens. of the Villa Medici, now in the Madrid museum (1106 and 1107), full of sparkle and charm. Landscape as an expression of art never had attraction for the Spaniards; but Velazquez here shows how great a master he was in this branch. The silvery views of Aranjuez, which at one time passed under his name, are now considered to be the work of his pupil Mazo. After a visit to Naples in 1631, where he worked with his countryman Ribera, and painted a charming portrait of the Infanta Maria, sister of Philip, Velazquez returned early in the year to Madrid.
He then painted the first of many portraits of the young prince, Don Baltasar Carlos, the heir to the throne, dignified and lordly even in his childhood, caracoling in the dress of a field-marshal on his prancing steed. The Wallace collection includes an example which is probably a copy by Mazo; but the finest in the United Kingdom is the well-known picture at Grosvenor House, a masterly example of the second manner of Velazquez. The colour is warm and bright, the workmanship solid and fused like enamel, while light and air pervade every corner. The scene is in the riding-school of the palace, the king and queen looking on from a balcony, while Olivares is in attendance as master of the horse to the prince. Don Baltasar died in 1646 at the age of seventeen, so that judged by his age this picture must have been painted about 1641, two years before the fall of Olivares. This powerful minister was the early and constant patron of the painter. His impassive, saturnine face is familiar to us from the many portraits painted by Velazquez, a face which, like his royal master’s, seems never to have known a smile, and in which are written pride and disdain. Two are of surpassing excellence—the full-length formerly in the Holford collection (exhibited at Burlington House in 1887), stately and dignified, in which he wears the green cross of Alcantara and holds a wand, the badge of his office as master of the horse; the other the great equestrian portrait of the Madrid gallery (No. 1069), in which he is flatteringly represented as a field-marshal in all his pomp during an action. It is difficult to overpraise the excellence of this work, either as regards its dramatic power or its masterly execution. In these portraits Velazquez has well repaid the debt of gratitude which he owed to his first patron, whom he stood by in his fall, thus exposing himself to the risk—and it was not a light one—of incurring the anger of the jealous Philip. The king, however, showed no sign of malice towards his favoured painter. Faithful in few things, Philip kept true to Velazquez, whom he visited daily in his studio in the palace, and to whom he stood in many attitudes and costumes, as a huntsman with his dogs, as a warrior in command of his troops, and even on his knees at prayer, wearing ever the same dull uninterested look. His pale face and lack-lustre eye, his fair flowing hair and moustaches curled up to his eyes, and his heavy projecting Austrian under-lip are known in many a portrait and nowhere more supremely than in the wonderful canvas of the London National Gallery (No. 745), where he seems to live and breathe. Few portraits in the whole range of art will compare with this work, in which the consummate handling of Velazquez is seen at its best, for it is in his late and most perfect manner.[1] From one of the equestrian portraits of the king, painted in 1638, the sculptor Montanes modelled a statue which was cast in bronze by the Florentine sculptor Tacca, and which now stands in the Plaza del Oriente at Madrid, “a solid Velazquez,” as it has been well named by Ford. This portrait exists no more; but there is no lack of others, for Velazquez was in constant and close attendance on Philip, accompanying him in his journeys to Aragon in 1642 and 1644, and was doubtless present with him when he entered Lerida as a conqueror. It was then that he painted the great equestrian portrait (No. 1066 of the Madrid gallery) in which the king is represented as a great commander leading his troops—a rôle which Philip never played except in a theatrical pageant. All is full of animation except the stolid face of the king. It hangs as a pendant to the great Olivares portrait—fit rivals of the neighbouring Charles V. by Titian, which doubtless fired Velazquez to excel himself, and both remarkable for their silvery tone and their feeling of open air and harmony combined with brilliancy. The light plays on the armour and scarf thrown to the wind, showing how completely Velazquez had mastered the effects he strove to reach in his early days. Of these two great works the Wallace collection includes small but excellent copies.
But, besides the forty portraits of Philip by Velazquez, or attributed to him, 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 beautiful 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 (shown in Burlington House in 1887), sat to the painter and, even if forgotten by history, will live on his canvas. The Admiral Pulido Pareja from Lord Radnor’s collection, now at the National Gallery, is said to have been taken by Philip for the living man; nevertheless, A. de Beruete is emphatic in denying Velazquez’s authorship of this picture, which he attributes to Mazo. It has been remarked that the Spaniards have always been chary of committing to canvas the portraits of their beautiful women. Queens and infantas may be painted and exhibited, but ladies rarely. One wonders who the beautiful woman can be that adorns the Wallace collection, 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 pulsate 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 is one of the ornaments of the Wallace collection. But, if we have few ladies of the court of Philip, we have in great plenty his buffoons and dwarfs. Even these deformed or half-witted 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 “Pablillos,” 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 vanquished 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. Behind Spinola stand the Spanish troops bearing their lances aloft, while beyond is a long stretch of the Low Country, dotted with fortifications 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 conception it is as fine as in execution, and one looks in vain for a trace of “the malicious pencil” 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
- ↑ In this and in all his portraits Philip wears the golilla, a stiff linen collar projecting at right angles from the neck. It was invented by the king, who was so proud of it that he celebrated it by a festival, followed by a procession to church to thank God for the blessing (Madame D’Aulnoy, Voyage d’Espagne). The golilla was thus the height of fashion and appears in most of the male portraits of the period; In regard to the wonderful structure of Philip’s moustaches, it is said that, to preserve their form, they were encased during the night in perfumed leather covers called bigoteras.
