What Languages Are Spoken in Spain Add 3 Pictures of Spanish Art

1656 painting by Diego Velázquez

Las Meninas
Artist	Diego Velázquez
Year	1656
Medium	Oil on canvass
Dimensions	318 cm × 276 cm (125.two in × 108.vii in)
Location	Museo del Prado, Madrid

Las Meninas ^[a] (pronounced [laz meˈninas]; Spanish for 'The Ladies-in-waiting ') is a 1656 painting in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, past Diego Velázquez, the leading creative person of the Spanish Golden Age. Its complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and creates an uncertain human relationship between the viewer and the figures depicted. Because of these complexities, Las Meninas has been one of the most widely analyzed works in Western painting.

The painting is believed by F. J. Sánchez Cantón to depict the main chamber in the Majestic Alcazar of Madrid during the reign of Male monarch Philip IV of Spain, and presents several figures, near identifiable from the Castilian court, captured, co-ordinate to some commentators, in a item moment as if in a snapshot.^{[b] [ii]} Some look out of the canvas towards the viewer, while others interact among themselves. The five-year-one-time Infanta Margaret Theresa is surrounded past her entourage of maids of honour, chaperone, bodyguard, two dwarfs and a dog. Just behind them, Velázquez portrays himself working at a large sheet. Velázquez looks outwards, beyond the pictorial space to where a viewer of the painting would stand.^[three] In the background there is a mirror that reflects the upper bodies of the king and queen. They appear to exist placed outside the picture infinite in a position like to that of the viewer, although some scholars accept speculated that their image is a reflection from the painting Velázquez is shown working on.

Las Meninas has long been recognised equally one of the almost important paintings in Western art history. The Baroque painter Luca Giordano said that it represents the "theology of painting", and in 1827 the president of the Royal Academy of Arts Sir Thomas Lawrence described the work in a letter to his successor David Wilkie equally "the true philosophy of the art".^[iv] More recently, it has been described as "Velázquez'southward supreme achievement, a highly self-conscious, calculated sit-in of what painting could achieve, and maybe the well-nigh searching annotate ever made on the possibilities of the easel painting".^[5]

Background [edit]

Court of Philip IV [edit]

The Infanta Margaret Theresa (1651–1673), in mourning dress for her father in 1666, by del Mazo. The background figures include her young brother Charles II and the dwarf Maribarbola, besides in Las Meninas. She left Kingdom of spain for her marriage in Vienna the same year.^[vi]

In 17th-century Kingdom of spain, painters rarely enjoyed high social status. Painting was regarded every bit a craft, not an art such as poesy or music.^[7] Nonetheless, Velázquez worked his way upward through the ranks of the courtroom of Philip IV, and in Feb 1651 was appointed palace chamberlain (aposentador mayor del palacio). The post brought him status and material advantage, but its duties made heavy demands on his time. During the remaining eight years of his life, he painted only a few works, mostly portraits of the royal family unit.^[8] When he painted Las Meninas, he had been with the royal household for 33 years.

Philip IV'southward first wife, Elizabeth of French republic, died in 1644, and their simply son, Balthasar Charles, died two years later. Lacking an heir, Philip married Mariana of Republic of austria in 1649,^[c] and Margaret Theresa (1651–1673) was their first child, and their only 1 at the time of the painting. Subsequently, she had a brusque-lived brother Philip Prospero (1657–1661), and and so Charles (1661–1700) arrived, who succeeded to the throne as Charles 2 at the historic period of three. Velázquez painted portraits of Mariana and her children,^[8] and although Philip himself resisted being portrayed in his one-time age he did allow Velázquez to include him in Las Meninas. In the early 1650s he gave Velázquez the Pieza Master ("main room") of the belatedly Balthasar Charles's living quarters, by then serving as the palace museum, to utilize every bit his studio, where Las Meninas is set. Philip had his own chair in the studio and would often sit down and lookout man Velázquez at work. Although constrained past rigid etiquette, the art-loving male monarch seems to have had a shut relationship with the painter. Later on Velázquez'south death, Philip wrote "I am crushed" in the margin of a memorandum on the selection of his successor.^{[9] [10]}

During the 1640s and 1650s, Velázquez served every bit both court painter and curator of Philip 4's expanding collection of European art. He seems to have been given an unusual caste of freedom in the role. He supervised the decoration and interior design of the rooms holding the nigh valued paintings, calculation mirrors, statues and tapestries. He was also responsible for the sourcing, attribution, hanging and inventory of many of the Castilian male monarch'due south paintings. By the early on 1650s, Velázquez was widely respected in Spain as a connoisseur. Much of the drove of the Prado today—including works by Titian, Raphael, and Rubens—were caused and assembled under Velázquez's curatorship.^[eleven]

Provenance and condition [edit]

Detail showing Philip IV's daughter, the Infanta Margaret Theresa. Most of her left cheek was repainted after being damaged in the fire of 1734.

The painting was referred to in the earliest inventories as La Familia ("The Family").^[12] A detailed description of Las Meninas, which provides the identification of several of the figures, was published by Antonio Palomino ("the Giorgio Vasari of the Castilian Golden Age") in 1724.^{[3] [13]} Examination under infrared lite reveals minor pentimenti, that is, there are traces of earlier working that the artist himself after altered. For example, at first Velázquez'southward ain head inclined to his correct rather than his left.^[xiv]

The painting has been cut down on both the left and right sides.^[d] It was damaged in the fire that destroyed the Alcázar in 1734, and was restored by courtroom painter Juan García de Miranda (1677–1749). The left cheek of the Infanta was well-nigh completely repainted to recoup for a substantial loss of pigment.^[e] Later on its rescue from the fire, the painting was inventoried as part of the imperial collection in 1747–48, and the Infanta was misidentified as Maria Theresa, Margaret Theresa's older half-sis, an error that was repeated when the painting was inventoried at the new Madrid Majestic Palace in 1772.^[17] A 1794 inventory reverted to a version of the earlier title, The Family of Philip Iv, which was repeated in the records of 1814. The painting entered the collection of the Museo del Prado on its foundation in 1819.^[e] In 1843, the Prado catalogue listed the piece of work for the outset time as Las Meninas.^[17]

In recent years, the pic has suffered a loss of texture and hue. Due to exposure to pollution and crowds of visitors, the once-bright contrasts between blue and white pigments in the costumes of the meninas have faded.^[eastward] It was last cleaned in 1984 under the supervision of the American conservator John Brealey, to remove a "yellow veil" of dust that had gathered since the previous restoration in the 19th century. The cleaning provoked, according to the art historian Federico Zeri, "furious protests, not because the picture had been damaged in any mode, only because information technology looked different".^{[eighteen] [19]} However, in the opinion of López-Rey, the "restoration was impeccable".^[17] Due to its size, importance, and value, the painting is non lent out for exhibition.^[f]

Painting materials [edit]

A thorough technical investigation including a pigment assay of Las Meninas was conducted around 1981 in the Museo del Prado.^[22] The analysis revealed the usual pigments of the baroque catamenia ofttimes used by Velázquez in his other paintings. The main pigments used for this painting were lead white, azurite (for the skirt of the kneeling menina), vermilion and crimson lake, ochres and carbon blacks.^[23]

Clarification [edit]

Bailiwick matter [edit]

Key to the people represented: see text

Las Meninas is set in Velázquez's studio in Philip 4'due south Alcázar palace in Madrid.^[24] The high-ceilinged room is presented, in the words of Silvio Gaggi, as "a simple box that could be divided into a perspective grid with a single vanishing point".^[25] In the centre of the foreground stands the Infanta Margaret Theresa (1). The v-yr-sometime infanta, who later married Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, was at this bespeak Philip and Mariana's merely surviving child.^[g] She is attended by ii ladies-in-waiting, or meninas: Doña Isabel de Velasco (2), who is poised to curtsy to the princess, and Doña María Agustina Sarmiento de Sotomayor [es] (three), who kneels before Margaret Theresa, offering her a beverage from a red cup, or búcaro, that she holds on a golden tray.^[26] To the correct of the Infanta are two dwarfs: the achondroplastic German, Mari Bárbola (iv),^[26] and the Italian, Nicolás Pertusato (5), who playfully tries to rouse a sleepy mastiff with his human foot. The dog is thought to exist descended from two mastiffs from Lyme Hall in Cheshire, given to Philip 3 in 1604 by James I of England.^[h] The Doña Marcela de Ulloa (half dozen), the princess's chaperone, stands behind them, dressed in mourning and talking to an unidentified bodyguard (or guardadamas) (7).^[26]

To the rear and at right Don José Nieto Velázquez (8)—the queen's chamberlain during the 1650s, and head of the royal tapestry works—who may have been a relative of the creative person. Nieto is shown standing only in pause, with his right knee aptitude and his feet on different steps. As the art critic Harriet Rock observes, it is uncertain whether he is "coming or going".^[28] He is rendered in silhouette and appears to hold open a curtain on a curt flight of stairs, with an unclear wall or space behind. Both this backlight and the open doorway reveal space behind: in the words of the art historian Analisa Leppanen, they lure "our eyes inescapably into the depths".^[29] The royal couple's reflection pushes in the opposite management, forrard into the motion picture infinite. The vanishing indicate of the perspective is in the doorway, as can exist shown past extending the line of the meeting of wall and ceiling on the right. Nieto is seen only by the king and queen, who share the viewer's bespeak of view, and not by the figures in the foreground. In the footnotes of Joel Snyder'due south article, the author recognizes that Nieto is the queen's bellboy and was required to be at hand to open up and close doors for her. Snyder suggests that Nieto appears in the doorway and then that the king and queen might depart. In the context of the painting, Snyder argues that the scene is the end of the royal couple'south sitting for Velázquez and they are preparing to exit, explaining that is "why the menina to the right of the Infanta begins to curtsy".^[xxx]

Velázquez himself (9) is pictured to the left of the scene, looking outward past a large sail supported past an easel.^[31] On his chest is the blood-red cross of the Society of Santiago, which he did not receive until 1659, iii years subsequently the painting was completed. According to Palomino, Philip ordered this to exist added afterward Velázquez's death, "and some say that his Majesty himself painted it".^[32] From the painter'southward chugalug hang the symbolic keys of his court offices.^[33]

A mirror on the back wall reflects the upper bodies and heads of two figures identified from other paintings, and by Palomino, every bit Rex Philip Iv (x) and Queen Mariana (11). The nigh mutual assumption is that the reflection shows the couple in the pose they are holding for Velázquez as he paints them, while their daughter watches; and that the painting therefore shows their view of the scene.^[34]

Of the nine figures depicted, five are looking directly out at the majestic couple or the viewer. Their glances, along with the king and queen's reflection, affirm the royal couple'due south presence exterior the painted infinite.^[28] Alternatively, art historians H. W. Janson and Joel Snyder suggest that the image of the male monarch and queen is a reflection from Velázquez's sheet, the forepart of which is obscured from the viewer.^{[35] [36]} Other writers say the canvas Velázquez is shown working on is unusually large for one of his portraits, and annotation that is near the aforementioned size as Las Meninas. The painting contains the only known double portrait of the royal couple painted past the creative person.^[37]

The bespeak of view of the picture is approximately that of the royal couple, though this has been widely debated. Many critics suppose that the scene is viewed by the king and queen as they pose for a double portrait, while the Infanta and her companions are present only to brand the process more enjoyable.^[38] Ernst Gombrich suggested that the picture might accept been the sitters' idea:

Perchance the princess was brought into the royal presence to relieve the colorlessness of the sitting and the King or the Queen remarked to Velazquez that here was a worthy subject for his brush. The words spoken by the sovereign are e'er treated as a control and and then we may owe this masterpiece to a passing wish which but Velazquez was able to turn into reality.^[39]

No single theory, even so, has found universal understanding.^[40] Leo Steinberg suggests that the King and Queen are to the left of the viewer and the reflection in the mirror is that of the sheet, a portrait of the king and queen.^[41]

Clark suggests that the work comprises a scene where the ladies-in-waiting are attempting to cajole the Infanta Doña Margarita to pose with her female parent and father. In his 1960 book "Looking at Pictures", Clark writes:

Our first feeling is of existence there. We are standing just to the correct of the King and Queen, whose reflections we can see in the distant mirror, looking down an austere room in the Alcazar (hung with del Mazo's copies of Rubens) and watching a familiar situation. The Infanta Doña Margarita doesn't want to pose...She is now five years old, and she has had enough. [Information technology is] an enormous picture, and then large that it stands on the floor, in which she is going to appear with her parents; and somehow the Infanta must be persuaded. Her ladies-in-waiting, known by the Portuguese name of meninas ... are doing their all-time to cajole her, and take brought her dwarfs, Maribarbola and Nicolasito, to amuse her. But in fact they alarm her almost equally much every bit they alarm united states of america.^[42]

The back wall of the room, which is in shadow, is hung with rows of paintings, including one of a series of scenes from Ovid'due south Metamorphoses by Rubens, and copies, by Velázquez's son-in-law and principal assistant del Mazo, of works by Jacob Jordaens.^[24] The paintings are shown in the exact positions recorded in an inventory taken around this time.^[31] The wall to the correct is hung with a grid of eight smaller paintings, visible mainly equally frames owing to their angle from the viewer.^[28] They tin exist identified from the inventory as more Mazo copies of paintings from the Rubens Ovid serial, though only two of the subjects tin can exist seen.^[24]

The paintings on the back wall are recognized as representing Minerva Punishing Arachne and Apollo's Victory Over Marsyas. Both stories involve Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and patron of the arts. These ii legends are both stories of mortals challenging gods and the dreadful consequences. One scholar points out that the legend dealing with ii women, Minerva and Arachne, is on the aforementioned side of the mirror equally the queen's reflection while the male person legend, involving the god Apollo and the satyr Marsyas, is on the side of the rex.^[43]

Limerick [edit]

The painted surface is divided into quarters horizontally and sevenths vertically; this grid is used to organise the elaborate group of characters, and was a common device at the time.^[44] Velázquez presents nine figures—eleven if the king and queen's reflected images are included—even so they occupy but the lower half of the canvas.^[45]

According to López-Rey, the painting has three focal points: the Infanta Margaret Theresa, the self-portrait and the one-half-length reflected images of King Philip Iv and Queen Mariana. In 1960, Clark observed that the success of the limerick is a result first and foremost of the accurate handling of light and shade:

Each focal signal involves u.s. in a new set of relations; and to paint a complex group like the Meninas, the painter must behave in his caput a single consequent scale of relations which he can apply throughout. He may use all kinds of devices to assist him do this—perspective is one of them—merely ultimately the truth about a complete visual impression depends on one thing, truth of tone. Drawing may be summary, colours drab, simply if the relations of tone are true, the picture volition hold.^[44]

However, the focal betoken of the painting is widely debated. Leo Steinberg argues that the orthogonals in the work are intentionally bearded so that the moving-picture show'southward focal centre shifts. Similar to Lopez-Rey, he describes three foci. The man in the doorway, withal, is the vanishing betoken. More specifically, the cheat of his arm is where the orthogonals of the windows and lights of the ceiling meet.^[46]

Depth and dimension are rendered past the use of linear perspective, past the overlapping of the layers of shapes, and in particular, as stated by Clark, through the utilize of tone. This compositional chemical element operates within the pic in a number of means. First, in that location is the appearance of natural calorie-free within the painted room and beyond it. The pictorial space in the midground and foreground is lit from two sources: by thin shafts of light from the open up door, and by broad streams coming through the window to the right.^[31] The 20th-century French philosopher and cultural critic Michel Foucault observed that the light from the window illuminates both the studio foreground and the unrepresented area in front of it, in which the male monarch, the queen, and the viewer are presumed to exist situated.^[47] For José Ortega y Gasset, light divides the scene into three distinct parts, with foreground and background planes strongly illuminated, between which a darkened intermediate infinite includes silhouetted figures.^[48]

Velázquez uses this light non but to add together volume and definition to each form but likewise to define the focal points of the painting. As the light streams in from the right information technology brightly glints on the braid and golden hair of the female dwarf, who is nearest the light source. But considering her confront is turned from the light, and in shadow, its tonality does not brand it a bespeak of particular interest. Similarly, the low-cal glances obliquely on the cheek of the lady-in-waiting almost her, simply not on her facial features. Much of her lightly coloured dress is dimmed past shadow. The Infanta, yet, stands in full illumination, and with her face turned towards the light source, fifty-fifty though her gaze is not. Her confront is framed by the pale gossamer of her pilus, setting her apart from everything else in the moving picture. The low-cal models the volumetric geometry of her class, defining the conic nature of a small torso jump rigidly into a corset and stiffened bodice, and the panniered skirt extending effectually her similar an oval candy-box, casting its own deep shadow which, by its sharp dissimilarity with the bright brocade, both emphasises and locates the small figure every bit the main point of attention.^[49]

Velázquez further emphasises the Infanta past his positioning and lighting of her maids of honour, who are set contrary 1 another: before and backside the Infanta. The maid on the viewer'south left is given a brightly lit profile, while her sleeve create a diagonal. Her opposite figure creates a broader but less divers reflection of her attention, making a diagonal space between them, in which their accuse stands protected.^[i]

A farther internal diagonal passes through the space occupied by the Infanta. There is a similar connection between the female dwarf and the effigy of Velázquez himself, both of whom look towards the viewer from similar angles, creating a visual tension. The face of Velázquez is dimly lit past light that is reflected, rather than direct. For this reason his features, though not equally sharply divers, are more than visible than those of the dwarf who is much nearer the light source. This appearance of a total confront, total-on to the viewer, draws the attention, and its importance is marked, tonally, by the contrasting frame of dark pilus, the light on the hand and castor, and the skilfully placed triangle of lite on the creative person'due south sleeve, pointing directly to the face.^[51]

The mirror is a perfectly defined unbroken pale rectangle inside a wide black rectangle. A clear geometric shape, like a lit face, draws the attention of the viewer more than than a broken geometric shape such as the door, or a adumbral or oblique face such as that of the dwarf in the foreground or that of the human in the background. The viewer cannot distinguish the features of the king and queen, simply in the opalescent sheen of the mirror's surface, the glowing ovals are apparently turned directly to the viewer. Jonathan Miller pointed out that apart from "calculation suggestive gleams at the bevelled edges, the most of import way the mirror betrays its identity is by disclosing imagery whose brightness is so inconsistent with the dimness of the surrounding wall that it tin only have been borrowed, by reflection, from the strongly illuminated figures of the Rex and Queen".^[52]

Equally the maids of honor are reflected in each other, then too practice the male monarch and queen take their doubles within the painting, in the dimly lit forms of the chaperone and baby-sit, the two who serve and care for their daughter. The positioning of these figures sets up a blueprint, one homo, a couple, one homo, a couple, and while the outer figures are nearer the viewer than the others, they all occupy the same horizontal band on the moving-picture show's surface.^[51]

Adding to the inner complexities of the picture is the male dwarf in the foreground, whose raised hand echoes the gesture of the figure in the background, while his playful demeanour, and lark from the central activity, are in consummate contrast with information technology. The informality of his pose, his shadowed profile, and his dark pilus all serve to brand him a mirror image to the kneeling attendant of the Infanta. Yet, the painter has set him forwards of the light streaming through the window, and and then minimised the contrast of tone on this foreground figure.^[51]

Despite certain spatial ambiguities this is the painter'due south almost thoroughly rendered architectural space, and the only one in which a ceiling is shown. According to López-Rey, in no other composition did Velázquez so dramatically atomic number 82 the eye to areas beyond the viewer'due south sight: both the sheet he is seen painting, and the space across the frame where the king and queen stand can only be imagined.^[53] The bareness of the dark ceiling, the back of Velázquez's canvas, and the strict geometry of framed paintings contrast with the animated, brilliantly lit and sumptuously painted foreground entourage.^[51] Rock writes:

We cannot accept in all the figures of the painting in one glance. Not only do the life-size proportions of the painting preclude such an appreciation, but also the fact that the heads of the figures are turned in different directions means that our gaze is deflected. The painting communicates through images which, in lodge to be understood, must thus be considered in sequence, ane after the other, in the context of a history that is notwithstanding unfolding. It is a history that is all the same unframed, even in this painting equanimous of frames within frames.^[54]

According to Kahr, the composition could have been influenced past the traditional Dutch Gallery Pictures such as those by Frans Francken the Younger, Willem van Haecht, or David Teniers the Younger. Teniers' piece of work was owned past Philip IV and would have been known by Velázquez. Similar Las Meninas, they often describe formal visits past important collectors or rulers, a common occurrence, and "testify a room with a serial of windows dominating one side wall and paintings hung between the windows as well every bit on the other walls". Gallery Portraits were also used to glorify the artist likewise equally royalty or members of the college classes, equally may take been Velázquez's intention with this piece of work.^[55]

Mirror and reflection [edit]

Particular of the mirror in van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait. Van Eyck's painting shows the pictorial infinite from "backside", and two further figures in forepart of the pic infinite, similar those in the reflection in the mirror in Las Meninas.

The spatial structure and positioning of the mirror's reflection are such that Philip 4 and Mariana appear to exist continuing on the viewer's side of the pictorial space, facing the Infanta and her entourage. Co-ordinate to Janson, not just is the gathering of figures in the foreground for Philip and Mariana's benefit, but the painter's attention is concentrated on the couple, as he appears to be working on their portrait.^[35] Although they tin can only be seen in the mirror reflection, their distant image occupies a key position in the sheet, in terms of social hierarchy as well as composition. As spectators, the viewer's position in relation to the painting is uncertain. It has been debated whether the ruling couple are standing beside the viewer or have replaced the viewer, who sees the scene through their eyes. Lending weight to the latter idea are the gazes of three of the figures—Velázquez, the Infanta, and Maribarbola—who appear to exist looking direct at the viewer.^[56]

The mirror on the dorsum wall indicates what is not there: the king and queen, and in the words of Harriet Stone, "the generations of spectators who assume the couple's place before the painting".^[28] Writing in 1980, the critics Snyder and Cohn observed:

Velázquez wanted the mirror to depend upon the useable [sic] painted canvas for its image. Why should he desire that? The luminous image in the mirror appears to reflect the rex and queen themselves, only it does more just this: the mirror outdoes nature. The mirror epitome is only a reflection. A reflection of what? Of the real thing—of the art of Velázquez. In the presence of his divinely ordained monarchs ... Velázquez exults in his artistry and counsels Philip and Maria not to await for the revelation of their epitome in the natural reflection of a looking glass but rather in the penetrating vision of their master painter. In the presence of Velázquez, a mirror paradigm is a poor imitation of the real.^[57]

In Las Meninas, the king and queen are supposedly "outside" the painting, yet their reflection in the back wall mirror also places them "inside" the pictorial space.^[58]

Snyder proposes it is "a mirror of majesty" or an allusion to the mirror for princes. While information technology is a literal reflection of the king and queen, Snyder writes "information technology is the image of exemplary monarchs, a reflection of platonic character".^[59] After he focuses his attention on the princess, writing that Velázquez's portrait is "the painted equivalent of a transmission for the educational activity of the princess—a mirror of the princess".^[60]

The painting is likely to have been influenced past Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, of 1434. At the time, van Eyck's painting hung in Philip'due south palace, and would accept been familiar to Velázquez.^{[14] [61]} The Arnolfini Portrait also has a mirror positioned at the back of the pictorial space, reflecting two figures who would have the same bending of vision as does the viewer of Velázquez's painting; they are besides minor to identify, merely it has been speculated that one may be intended as the artist himself, though he is not shown in the act of painting. Co-ordinate to Lucien Dällenbach:

The mirror [in Las Meninas] faces the observer as in Van Eyck's painting. Only here the process is more realistic to the degree that the "rearview" mirror in which the royal couple appears is no longer convex only flat. Whereas the reflection in the Flemish painting recomposed objects and characters inside a space that is condensed and deformed by the curve of the mirror, that of Velázquez refuses to play with the laws of perspective: it projects onto the canvas the perfect double of the king and queen positioned in forepart of the painting.^[34]

Jonathan Miller asks: "What are nosotros to make of the blurred features of the royal couple? It is unlikely that information technology has annihilation to practise with the optical imperfection of the mirror, which would, in reality, have displayed a focused epitome of the King and Queen". He notes that "in improver to the represented mirror, he teasingly implies an unrepresented ane, without which it is difficult to imagine how he could have shown himself painting the picture we now see".^[62]

Interpretation [edit]

The elusiveness of Las Meninas, according to Dawson Carr, "suggests that art, and life, are an illusion".^[63] The relationship betwixt illusion and reality were central concerns in Castilian civilisation during the 17th century, figuring largely in Don Quixote, the best-known work of Spanish Baroque literature. In this respect, Calderón de la Barca'south play Life is a Dream is usually seen as the literary equivalent of Velázquez's painting:

What is a life? A frenzy. What is life?
A shadow, an illusion, and a sham.
The greatest good is small; all life, it seems
Is merely a dream, and even dreams are dreams.^[63]

Particular showing the red cantankerous of the Order of Santiago painted on the breast of Velázquez. Presumably this item was added at a later date, every bit the painter was admitted to the order past the male monarch's prescript on 28 Nov, 1659.^[64]

Jon Manchip White notes that the painting can be seen equally a résumé of the whole of Velázquez's life and career, as well as a summary of his art to that betoken. He placed his only confirmed self-portrait in a room in the purple palace surrounded by an associates of royalty, courtiers, and fine objects that correspond his life at courtroom.^[26] The art historian Svetlana Alpers suggests that, by portraying the artist at work in the company of royalty and nobility, Velázquez was claiming high condition for both the creative person and his art,^[65] and in detail to propose that painting is a liberal rather than a mechanical fine art. This stardom was a point of controversy at the fourth dimension. Information technology would accept been significant to Velázquez, since the rules of the Order of Santiago excluded those whose occupations were mechanical.^[5] Kahr asserts that this was the best way for Velázquez to bear witness that he was "neither a craftsman or a tradesman, merely an official of the court". Furthermore, this was a way to prove himself worthy of acceptance past the imperial family.^[66]

Michel Foucault devoted the opening chapter of The Guild of Things (1966) to an analysis of Las Meninas. Foucault describes the painting in meticulous detail, but in a linguistic communication that is "neither prescribed by, nor filtered through the various texts of art-historical investigation".^[67] Foucault viewed the painting without regard to the subject matter, nor to the creative person's biography, technical ability, sources and influences, social context, or relationship with his patrons. Instead he analyzes its conscious artifice, highlighting the complex network of visual relationships between painter, subject-model, and viewer:

We are looking at a motion picture in which the painter is in turn looking out at united states of america. A mere confrontation, eyes catching 1 another'due south glance, direct looks superimposing themselves upon ane another as they cross. And yet this slender line of reciprocal visibility embraces a whole circuitous network of uncertainties, exchanges, and feints. The painter is turning his eyes towards us merely in so far as we happen to occupy the aforementioned position as his subject area.^{[68] [69]}

For Foucault, Las Meninas illustrates the starting time signs of a new episteme, or way of thinking. Information technology represents a midpoint betwixt what he sees as the two "great discontinuities" in European idea, the classical and the mod: "Perchance there exists, in this painting by Velázquez, the representation as it were of Classical representation, and the definition of the space information technology opens upward to united states ... representation, freed finally from the relation that was impeding information technology, can offering itself as representation in its pure form."^{[68] [70]}

Now he (the painter) can be seen, defenseless in a moment of stillness, at the neutral eye of his oscillation. His dark torso and bright face up are one-half-fashion between the visible and the invisible: emerging from the canvas beyond our view, he moves into our gaze; but when, in a moment, he makes a stride to the right, removing himself from our gaze, he will be standing exactly in front of the canvas he is painting; he volition enter that region where his painting, neglected for an instant, will, for him, become visible once more, free of shadow and free of reticence. As though the painter could not at the same fourth dimension be seen on the motion picture where he is represented and also see that upon which he is representing something."^[71]

Las Meninas equally culmination of themes in Velázquez [edit]

Many aspects of Las Meninas relate to earlier works past Velázquez in which he plays with conventions of representation. In the Rokeby Venus—his only surviving nude—the face up of the subject is visible, blurred beyond any realism, in a mirror. The angle of the mirror is such that although "often described as looking at herself, [she] is more disconcertingly looking at the states".^[72] In the early Christ in the House of Martha and Mary of 1618,^[j] Christ and his companions are seen simply through a serving hatch to a room behind, according to the National Gallery (London), who are articulate that this is the intention, although earlier restoration many art historians regarded this scene as either a painting hanging on the wall in the main scene, or a reflection in a mirror, and the contend has continued.^{[k] [l]} The dress worn in the two scenes also differs: the primary scene is in contemporary dress, while the scene with Christ uses conventional iconographic biblical dress.^[fifty]

In Las Hilanderas, believed to have been painted the year after Las Meninas, two different scenes from Ovid are shown: ane in contemporary dress in the foreground, and the other partly in antique wearing apparel, played earlier a tapestry on the dorsum wall of a room backside the first. According to the critic Sira Dambe, "aspects of representation and power are addressed in this painting in ways closely continued with their handling in Las Meninas".^[7] In a series of portraits of the late 1630s and 1640s—all now in the Prado—Velázquez painted clowns and other members of the royal household posing as gods, heroes, and philosophers; the intention is certainly partly comic, at to the lowest degree for those in the know, but in a highly cryptic style.^[76]

Velázquez's portraits of the royal family themselves had until and so been straightforward, if often unflatteringly straight and highly complex in expression. On the other paw, his royal portraits, designed to be seen beyond vast palace rooms, feature more strongly than his other works the bravura treatment for which he is famous: "Velázquez'south treatment of paint is uncommonly free, and equally ane approaches Las Meninas there is a point at which the figures suddenly dissolve into smears and blobs of paint. The long-handled brushes he used enabled him to stand back and estimate the total event."^[33]

Influence [edit]

In 1692, the Neapolitan painter Luca Giordano became one of the few allowed to view paintings held in Philip Iv's private apartments, and was greatly impressed by Las Meninas. Giordano described the work as the "theology of painting",^[45] and was inspired to paint A Homage to Velázquez (National Gallery, London).^[78] Past the early on 18th century his oeuvre was gaining international recognition, and later in the century British collectors ventured to Spain in search of acquisitions. Since the popularity of Italian art was and then at its meridian among British connoisseurs, they concentrated on paintings that showed obvious Italian influence, largely ignoring others such as Las Meninas.^[79]

An almost immediate influence can be seen in the two portraits by Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo of subjects depicted in Las Meninas, which in some ways opposite the motif of that painting. Ten years after, in 1666, Mazo painted Infanta Margaret Theresa, who was and then 15 and simply virtually to exit Madrid to marry the Holy Roman Emperor. In the background are figures in 2 further receding doorways, one of which was the new Rex Charles (Margaret Theresa's brother), and another the dwarf Maribarbola. A Mazo portrait of the widowed Queen Mariana again shows, through a doorway in the Alcázar, the young king with dwarfs, perhaps including Maribarbola, and attendants who offer him a drink.^{[eighty] [81]} Mazo's painting of The Family of the Artist also shows a composition similar to that of Las Meninas.^[82]

Francisco Goya etched a print of Las Meninas in 1778,^[83] and used Velázquez's painting as the model for his Charles 4 of Kingdom of spain and His Family unit. As in Las Meninas, the royal family unit in Goya'southward work is apparently visiting the creative person's studio. In both paintings the creative person is shown working on a canvas, of which just the rear is visible. Goya, still, replaces the atmospheric and warm perspective of Las Meninas with what Pierre Gassier calls a sense of "imminent suffocation". Goya's majestic family unit is presented on a "stage facing the public, while in the shadow of the wings the painter, with a grim smile, points and says: 'Look at them and judge for yourself!' "^[77]

The 19th-century British art collector William John Bankes travelled to Spain during the Peninsular State of war (1808–1814) and caused a copy of Las Meninas painted by Mazo,^[84] which he believed to be an original preparatory oil sketch by Velázquez—although Velázquez did not usually pigment studies. Bankes described his buy as "the glory of my collection", noting that he had been "a long while in treaty for it and was obliged to pay a high price".^[85]

A new appreciation for Velázquez'southward less Italianate paintings adult after 1819, when Ferdinand Vii opened the royal drove to the public.^[84] In 1879 John Vocalizer Sargent painted a small-scale copy of Las Meninas, while his 1882 painting The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is a homage to Velázquez'southward console. The Irish artist Sir John Lavery chose Velázquez'south masterpiece as the basis for his portrait The Royal Family at Buckingham Palace, 1913. George V visited Lavery's studio during the execution of the painting, and, perhaps remembering the legend that Philip Iv had daubed the cross of the Knights of Santiago on the effigy of Velázquez, asked Lavery if he could contribute to the portrait with his own hand. Co-ordinate to Lavery, "Thinking that royal bluish might be an appropriate colour, I mixed it on the palette, and taking a brush he [George V] practical it to the Garter ribbon."^[84]

Betwixt August and December 1957, Pablo Picasso painted a series of 58 interpretations of Las Meninas, and figures from it, which currently fill the Las Meninas room of the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, Spain. Picasso did not vary the characters inside the serial, but largely retained the naturalness of the scene; co-ordinate to the museum, his works constitute an "exhaustive report of form, rhythm, colour and motility".^[86] A impress of 1973 past Richard Hamilton called Picasso'south Meninas draws on both Velázquez and Picasso.^[87] Photographer Joel-Peter Witkin was deputed by the Spanish Ministry building of Civilisation to create a work titled Las Meninas, New Mexico (1987) which references Velázquez's painting likewise as other works by Spanish artists.^[88]

In 2004, the video artist Eve Sussman filmed 89 Seconds at Alcázar, a high-definition video tableau inspired by Las Meninas. The work is a recreation of the moments leading up to and directly following the approximately 89 seconds when the royal family and their courtiers would have come up together in the exact configuration of Velázquez's painting. Sussman had assembled a team of 35, including an architect, a set designer, a choreographer, a costume designer, actors, and a film crew.^[89]

A 2008 exhibition at the Museu Picasso called "Forgetting Velázquez: Las Meninas" included fine art responding to Velázquez's painting by Fermín Aguayo, Avigdor Arikha, Claudio Bravo, Juan Carreño de Miranda, Michael Craig-Martin, Salvador Dalí, Juan Downey, Goya, Hamilton, Mazo, Vik Muniz, Jorge Oteiza, Picasso, Antonio Saura, Franz von Stuck, Sussman, Manolo Valdés, and Witkin, among others.^{[90] [91]} In 2009 the Museo del Prado published online photographs of Las Meninas in at a resolution of 14,000 megapixels.^{[92] [93]}

Notes [edit]

1. ^ The name is sometimes given in print as Las Meniñas, simply there is no discussion "meniña" in Spanish. The word means "girl from a noble family brought upwardly to serve at court" (Oxford Concise Spanish Dictionary) and comes from menina , the Portuguese word for "girl". This misspelling may exist due to confusion with niña , the Spanish give-and-take for "girl".
2. ^ In 1855, William Stirling wrote in Velázquez and his works: "Velázquez seems to have predictable the discovery of Daguerre and, taking a real room and real people grouped together by chance, to have fixed them, as it were, past magic, for all fourth dimension, on canvas".^[1]
3. ^ Mariana of Austria had originally been betrothed to Balthasar Charles.
4. ^ At that place is no documentation every bit to the dates or reasons for the trimming. López-Rey states that the truncation is more notable on the right.^[fifteen]
5. ^ ^{a b c} Records of 1735 bear witness that the original frame was lost during the painting'south rescue from the burn. The appraisal of 1747–48 makes reference to the painting having been "lately restored".^[16]
6. ^ The work was evacuated to Geneva by the Republican Government, together with much of the Prado's drove, during the last months of the Spanish Ceremonious War, where information technology hung in an exhibition of Spanish paintings in 1939, next to Pablo Picasso'south Guernica.^{[twenty] [21]}
7. ^ Maria Theresa was by then queen of French republic as wife of Louis XIV of French republic. Philip Prospero, Prince of Asturias, was born the post-obit yr, merely died at four, before long earlier his brother Charles Ii was built-in. 1 girl from this union, and five from Philip'south first wedlock, had died in infancy.
8. ^ "And a couple of Lyme-hounds of singular qualities which the King and Queen in very kind fashion accustomed."^[27]
9. ^ "The composition is anchored by the two strong diagonals that intersect at nigh the spot where the Infanta stands ..."^[50]
10. ^ Co-ordinate to López-Rey, "[The Arnolfini Portrait] has little in common with Velázquez' limerick, the closest and near meaningful antecedent to which is to exist found within his ain oeuvre in Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, painted almost forty years earlier, in Seville, before he could have seen the Arnolfini portrait in Madrid".^[73]
11. ^ The restoration was in 1964, and removed earlier "impuissant repainting".^[74]
12. ^ ^{a b} Jonathan Miller, for instance, in 1998, continued to regard the inset picture equally a reflection in a mirror.^[75]

References [edit]

1. ^ López-Rey (1999), Vol. I, p. 211
2. ^ Kubler, George (1966). "Three Remarks on the Meninas". The Art Bulletin. 48 (2): 212–214. doi:10.2307/3048367. JSTOR 3048367.
3. ^ ^{a b} Kahr (1975), p. 225
4. ^ Gower, Ronald Sutherland (1900). Sir Thomas Lawrence. London, Paris & New York: Goupil & co. p. 83.
5. ^ ^{a b} Honor & Fleming (1982), p. 447
6. ^ Prado (1996), p. 216
7. ^ ^{a b} Dambe, Sira (December 2006). "Enslaved sovereign: aesthetics of power in Foucault, Velázquez and Ovid". Journal of Literary Studies. 22 (3–4): 229–256. doi:10.1080/02564710608530402. S2CID 143516350. Archived from the original on 24 March 2021. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
8. ^ ^{a b} Carr (2006), p. 46
9. ^ Canaday, John (1972) [1969]. "Baroque Painters". The Lives of the Painters. New York: Norton Library. ISBN978-0-393-00665-0.
10. ^ Kahr (1975), quoting Pacheco.
11. ^ Alpers (2005), p. 183
12. ^ Levey, Michael (1971). Painting at Court. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 147. ISBN978-0-8147-4950-0.
13. ^ Palomino (1715/24), p. 342
14. ^ ^{a b c} López-Rey (1999), Vol. I, p. 214
15. ^ López-Rey (1999), Vol. II, p. 306
16. ^ López-Rey (1999), Vol. II, pp. 306, 310
17. ^ ^{a b c} López-Rey (1999), Vol. II, pp. 310–11
18. ^ Editorial (January 1985). "The cleaning of 'Las Meninas'". The Burlington Magazine. Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd. 127 (982): 2–3, 41. JSTOR 881920.
19. ^ Zeri, Federico (1990). Backside the Prototype, the fine art of reading paintings. London: Heinemann. p. 153. ISBN978-0-434-89688-2.
20. ^ Held & Potts (1988), p. 36
21. ^ Russell, John (3 September 1989). "Masterpieces caught betwixt 2 wars". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 9 June 2008. Retrieved xv Dec 2007.
22. ^ McKim-Smith, G.; Andersen-Bergdoll, Grand.; Newman, R. (1988). Examining Velazquez. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN978-0-300-03615-2.
23. ^ "Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas". ColourLex. Archived from the original on 31 July 2015. Retrieved xix March 2021.
24. ^ ^{a b c} Alpers (2005), p. 185
25. ^ Gaggi (1989), p. i
26. ^ ^{a b c d} White (1969), p. 143
27. ^ Baker, Richard (1684). A Chronicle of the Kings of England. London: H. Sawbridge, B. Tooke and T. Sawbridge. p. 408. Archived from the original on 24 March 2021. Retrieved nineteen March 2021.
28. ^ ^{a b c d} Stone (1996), p. 35
29. ^ Leppanen, Analisa (2000). "Into the firm of mirrors: the carnivalesque in Las Meninas". Aurora. 1. page numbers unknown
30. ^ Snyder (1985), p. 571
31. ^ ^{a b c} Carr (2006), p. 47
32. ^ Palomino (1715/24). Quoted in: Kahr (1975), p. 225
33. ^ ^{a b} Honour & Fleming (1982), p. 449
34. ^ ^{a b} Dällenbach, Lucien (1977). Le récit spéculaire: Essai sur la mise en abyme. Paris: Seuil. p. 21. ISBN978-2-02-004556-8. Quoted in English in Stone (1996), p. 29
35. ^ ^{a b} Janson, H. West. (1977). History of Art: A Survey of the Major Visual Arts from the Dawn of History to the Nowadays Day (2d ed.). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. p. 433. ISBN978-0-13-389296-3.
36. ^ Snyder (1985), p. 547
37. ^ Gaggi (1989), p. 3
38. ^ White (1969), p. 144
39. ^ Chapter xix of Gombrich, Ernst (1950). The Story of Art. London & New York: Phaidon Press.
40. ^ López-Rey (1999), Vol. I, pp. 214–16
41. ^ Steinberg (1981), p. 52
42. ^ Clark (1960), p. 33
43. ^ Kahr (1975), p. 244
44. ^ ^{a b} Clark (1960), pp. 32–forty
45. ^ ^{a b} White (1969), pp. 140–41
46. ^ Steinberg (1981), p. 51
47. ^ Foucault (1966), p. 21
48. ^ Ortega y Gasset, José (1953). Velázquez. New York: Random House. p. XLVII.
49. ^ López-Rey (1999), p. 217
50. ^ López-Rey (1999), p. 217
51. ^ ^{a b c d} López-Rey (1999), pp. 216–217
52. ^ Miller (1998), pp. 78–79
53. ^ López-Rey (1999), p. 217
54. ^ Stone (1996), p. 37
55. ^ Kahr (1975), p. 240
56. ^ Gaggi (1989), p. 2
57. ^ Snyder & Cohn (1980), p. 485
58. ^ Lowrie, Joyce (1999). "Barbey D'Aurevilly's Une Page D'Histoire: A poetics of incest". Romanic Review. 90 (ii): 379–395.
59. ^ Snyder (1985), p. 559
60. ^ Snyder (1985), p. 564
61. ^ Campbell, Lorne (1998). The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings. London: National Gallery Catalogues (new series). p. 180. ISBN978-1-85709-171-7.
62. ^ Miller (1998), pp. 78, 12
63. ^ ^{a b} Carr (2006), p. 50
64. ^ López-Rey (1999), Vol. 2, p. 308
65. ^ Alpers (2005), p. 150
66. ^ Kahr (1975), p. 241
67. ^ Gresle (2007), p. 212
68. ^ ^{a b} Gresle (2007), p. 213
69. ^ Foucault (1966), pp. 4–v
70. ^ Foucault (1966), p. 18
71. ^ Foucault (1966), pp. 3–iv
72. ^ Miller (1998), p. 162
73. ^ López-Rey, Vol. I, p. 214
74. ^ MacLaren (1970), p. 122
75. ^ Miller (1998), p. 162
76. ^ Prado (1996), pp. 428–31
77. ^ ^{a b} Gassier (1995), pp. 69–73
78. ^ Brady (2006), p. 94
79. ^ Brady (2006), p. 97
80. ^ MacLaren (1970), pp. 52–53.
81. ^ National Gallery Archived 24 October 2007 at the Wayback Motorcar The painting has been cutting down.
82. ^ Beaujean, Dieter (2001). Velasquez. London: Konemann. p. 90. ISBN978-3-8290-5865-0.
83. ^ Gassier (1995), p. 24
84. ^ ^{a b c} Brady (2006), pp. 100–101
85. ^ Harris, E (1990). Velázquez y Gran Bretana. Seville: Symposium Internacional Velázquez. p. 127.
86. ^ ^{a b} "Picasso". Museu Picasso. Archived from the original on 14 July 2009. Retrieved 19 November 2007.
87. ^ "Picasso's meninas 1973". London: Tate Gallery. Archived from the original on 24 November 2010. Retrieved 26 December 2007.
88. ^ Parry, Eugenia; Witkin, Joel (2001). Joel-Peter Witkin. London: Phaidon. p. 66. ISBN978-0-7148-4056-vii. Archived from the original on 24 March 2021. Retrieved 14 November 2015.
89. ^ Sawkins, Annemarie. "Eve Sussman'due south 89 Seconds at Alcázar". Marquette University. Archived from the original on 19 Dec 2007. Retrieved 7 Dec 2007.
90. ^ "Forgetting Velázquez. Las Meninas". Museu Picasso of Barcelona. 2008. Archived from the original on 15 February 2009. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
91. ^ Utley, Gertje; Gual, Malén (2008). Olvidando a Velázquez: Las Meninas. Barcelona: Museu Picasso. ISBN978-84-9850-089-9.
92. ^ "The 14 masterpieces of the Prado museum in mega loftier resolution on Google Globe". Museo de Prado. Archived from the original on 1 Feb 2021. Retrieved xiv February 2021.
93. ^ Tremlett, Giles (13 January 2009). "Google brings masterpieces from Prado direct to armchair art lovers". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 21 December 2019. Retrieved fourteen February 2021.

Sources [edit]

• Alpers, Svetlana (2005). The Vexations of art: Velázquez and others. New Oasis: Yale University Printing. ISBN978-0-300-10825-v.
• Brady, Xavier (2006). Velázquez and Britain. New Haven: Yale University Printing. ISBN978-1-85709-303-ii.
• Carr, Dawson Due west. (2006). "Painting and reality: the art and life of Velázquez". In Carr, Dawson W.; Bray, Xavier (eds.). Velázquez. London: National Gallery. ISBN978-1-85709-303-2.
• Clark, Kenneth (1960). Looking at Pictures. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston. ISBN978-0-7195-0232-3.
• Foucalt, Michel (1996). The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Homo Sciences. Paris: Gallimard. ISBN978-0-679-75335-3.
• Gaggi, Silvio (1989). Modern/Postmodern: A Report in Twentieth-century Arts and Ideas. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN978-0-8122-1384-3.
• Gassier, Pierre (1995). Goya: Biographical and Critical Study. New York: Skira. ISBN978-0-7581-3747-0. Archived from the original on 27 February 2008.
• Held, Jutta; Potts, Alex (1988). "How Do the Political Effects of Pictures Come nigh? The Instance of Picasso's Guernica". Oxford Art Journal. Oxford Academy Press. 11 (1): 33–39. doi:ten.1093/oxartj/11.1.33. JSTOR 1360321.
• Award, Hugh; Fleming, John (1982). A World History of Art. London: Macmillan. ISBN978-1-85669-451-3.
• Kahr, Madlyn Millner (June 1975). "Velazquez and Las Meninas". The Art Bulletin. College Art Association. 57 (2): 225–246. doi:ten.2307/3049372. JSTOR 3049372.
• López-Rey, José (1999). Velázquez: Catalogue Raisonné. Cologne: Taschen. ISBN978-3-8228-8277-one.
• MacLaren, Neil (1970). The Castilian School, National Gallery Catalogues. Revised by Allan Braham. London: National Gallery. ISBN978-0-947645-46-5.
• Miller, Jonathan (1998). On reflection. London: National Gallery Publications Limited. ISBN978-0-300-07713-i.
• Museo del Prado (1996). Museo del Prado, Catálogo de las pinturas [Prado Museum, Catalog of paintings] (in Castilian). Madrid: Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, Madrid. ISBN978-84-7483-410-9.
• Palomino, Antonio (1715–1724). El museo pictorico y escala optica [The pictorial museum and optical calibration] (in Castilian). Vol. 2. Madrid. Retrieved one September 2017.
• Snyder, Joel; Cohen, Ted (Winter 1980). "Reflexions on Las Meninas: paradox lost". Critical Inquiry. The University of Chicago Printing. 7 (2): 429–447. doi:ten.1086/448107. JSTOR 1343136. S2CID 161395640.
• Snyder, Joel (June 1985). "Las Meninas and the Mirror of Prices". Critical Inquiry. The Academy of Chicago Printing. 11 (four): 539–572. doi:10.1086/448307. JSTOR 1343417. S2CID 162111194.
• Steinberg, Leo (Winter 1981). "Valazquez' Las Meninas". October. The MIT Printing. 19: 45–54. doi:10.2307/778659. JSTOR 778659.
• Stone, Harriet (1996). The Classical Model: Literature and Knowledge in Seventeenth-century France. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN978-0-8014-3212-5.
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• Gresle, Yvette (6 July 2007). "Foucault'south 'Las Meninas' and art-historical methods". Journal of Literary Studies. Taylor & Francis. 22 (3–4): 211–228. doi:10.1080/02564710608530401. S2CID 145488454.

Further reading [edit]

• Brooke, Xanthe. "A masterpiece in waiting: the response to 'Las Meninas' in nineteenth century United kingdom", in Stratton-Pruitt, Suzanne, ed. Velázquez'due south 'Las Meninas'. Cambridge: Cambridge University Printing, 2003. ISBN 978-0-521-80488-ii.
• Liess, Reinhard. Im Spiegel der Meninas. Velásquez über sich und Rubens. Goettingen: V&Runipress, 2003, ISBN 978-3-89971-101-1
• Searle, John R. "Las Meninas and the paradoxes of pictorial representation". Critical Inquiry 6 (Leap 1980).

External links [edit]

• La Kabala y Las Meninas Archived 3 Baronial 2020 at the Wayback Motorcar (in Spanish)
• Las Meninas at the Electronic Visualization Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago Archived v December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
• Educational sound bout of Las Meninas
• Velázquez , exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Las Meninas (see alphabetize)

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Meninas

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