Birth Year : 1599
Death Year : 1660
Country : Spain
Diego Velázquez, although born in Seville, was of Portuguese
descent. He may have studied with Herrara, the elder, but it is certain
that he spent six years in Seville in the studio of a painter named Pacheco
whose daughter he married in 1618. Until 1623, when he went to Madrid and
became painter to the king, his work was Baroque in style, with heavy pigment
and sharp contrasts that suited the tavern scenes and still lifes he painted.
As court painter, however, he was principally a portraitist; and his style
changed entirely, becoming lighter, clearer, shallower in composition.
After a trip to Italy in 1629, Velázquez, who had copied Renaissance
paintings, abandoned Classicism entirely and began to use silvery tones
and a wider range of color, painting in a manner that was not to be equaled
in atmosphere, dramatic composition, use of light, and optical effects
until the nineteenth-century Impressionists. The interrelation of light,
air, and color gives poetry to his portraits which are otherwise quite
impersonal in their presentation of the subjects, who seem alive upon the
canvas entirely because of the artist's skill and accurate eye. Velázquez
went to Italy again from 1649 to 1651 to collect the works of the old masters
for the king. During this time he did a magnificent portrait of Pope Innocent
X. Upon his return to Madrid, Velázquez was made a Knight of the
Order of Santiago and appointed Grand Marshall of the Palace. The artist
had to devote much of his time to his royal duties and to catering to the
royal whims; overburdened by his courtly duties, he died of a fever in
1660. A master of the art of painting, Velázquez handled composition,
color, light and space to perfection and was masterful at painting historical
scenes, still lifes, interiors, and portraits of noblemen or peasants.
His influence extended to such artists as Goya, Courbet, Manet, Eakins,
and the Impressionists, and is still being felt today.
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