To call the complexion of that simple ceramic ‘otherworldly’ is more than mere poetic hyperbole. That’s not to say the ingestion of búcaro clay wasn’t without its own unpredictable reactions, including a perilous depletion of red blood cells, paralysis of muscles, and the destruction of one’s liver. The two paintings on the back wall above the mirror are laden with symbolism. Velázquez’s Las Meninas: A detail that decodes a masterpiece, The secret toilet humour in a Titian painting. The whole surface of Las Meninas feels alive to our presence.”. This is why, Snyder states, Velázquez has stepped away from his canvas and the girls are poised to curtsey. With a remarkable degree of intricacy, the former painting even contains a reference to another artwork owned by the Spanish royal family: Titian’s Rape of Europa. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. Detail of Las Meninas, by Diego Velazquez. The French philosopher dedicates the opening chapter of the work to an analysis of Velázquez’s painting, studying the gazes shared by artist, viewer and subject and using them to explain the network of relationships. It has been this way since its completion during the Spanish Golden Age. According to the art historian Byron Ellsworth Hamann, who has forensically traced the likely origin of many of the objects that adorn the interior of Velasquez’s work (including that silver tray), the vessel’s distinct glossiness and bright red hue mark it out as a product of Guadalajara, Mexico. Articles About Art - Las Meninas and the Problem of Interpretation. Does the mirror position them where we are, on the outside looking in, the very subjects of a portrait that Velázquez is at some stage of beginning or finishing?

There may be a deeper, philosophical meaning behind Las Meninas too. More like this: - The fresco with multiple identities - The secret toilet humour in a Titian painting - The tragedy of art’s greatest supermodel.

At only 23, the young Velázquez travelled to Madrid for the first time to seek royal patronage form the new King, Philip IV.

Las meninas (with a self-portrait of the artist at the left, reflections of Philip IV and Queen Mariana in the mirror at the back of the room, and the infanta Margarita with her meninas, or maids of honour, in the foreground), oil on canvas by Diego Velázquez, c. 1656; in the Prado Museum, Madrid. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Many famous painters chose to look at Las Meninas through their own lens. On the one hand, the canvas’s perspective lines converge to a vanishing point within the open doorway, pulling our gaze through the work. Of course, originally the spectator would have been Philip, as it hung in his office. Las Meninas passed straight from royal hands into the keeping of El Prado when it was established in the 19th century. It became something of a fad in 17th-Century Spanish aristocratic circles for girls and young women to nibble at the rims of these porous clay vases and slowly to devour them entirely. She holds a BA in Classics from the University of Cambridge. ), suddenly expands to the mindset of the painting.

The space of the room is portrayed like a stage set, with the seven layers of space arranged at irregular intervals. Luckily, scholars have been studying the painting for so long that there are at least some clear facts: The painting was made in 1656, while Philip IV and Mariana of Austria were King and Queen of Spain.

The mirror puts the King and Queen in the same position as the viewer, with the figures in the central image staring at us, just as we stare at them. Velázquez died in 1660, while still working on plans for his next project: the interior decoration of a grand pavilion for the wedding of the king’s daughter.