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VELAZQUEZ, DIEGO RODRIGUEZ. 



VELAZQUEZ, DIEGO RODRIGUEZ. 



303 



man of strong religious feeling, and this, in its excess, led in 1843 to 

 the termination of hia connection with the Stadelsche Institute. The 

 council having purchased Leasing' s picture of ' John HUBS, before 

 the Council of Constance,' [LESSING, K. F.] to place in the building, 

 Veit protested against its admission, and eventually resigned his 

 directorship. He then removed his atelier to Sachsenhausen in Hesse- 

 Cassel. He has since painted for Frankfurt Cathedral an important 

 picture of the ' Ascension of the Virgin ;' and for the King of Prussia, 

 among others, 'The Maries at the Sepulchre,' 'The Parable of the 

 Good Samaritan,' and The Egyptian Darkness,' which he has rendered 

 in an entirely original manner. 



VELA'ZQUEZ, DIE'GO RODRIGUEZ DE SILVA Y, was born 

 at Seville, and baptized there June 6, 1599. His parents, on the 

 father's side, were of Portuguese origin. Having manifested, while 

 yet a child, a decided turn for drawing, he was placed under Francisco 

 Herrera el Viejo. This master, harsh, violent, and extravagant as a 

 man, was an artist of great native power, boldness and originality ; 

 his paintings were true exponents of his character. He first broke 

 down the timid and conventional style of the Sevillians, who hitherto 

 had followed in the manner of the Italians : to obtain effects true to 

 nature was hia ambition, and for this end he despised means and 

 materials alike, working with the coarsest colours, and using brushes 

 of an unusual length. The principles of his method and handling are 

 to be traced in all the works of his pupil, improved indeed by a 

 higher quality of touch and intention. VeMzquez, who was of a 

 gentle disposition, was driven by ill usage from this studio, and entered 

 that of Francisco Pacheco, who was the very opposite of Herrera. 

 This feeble creature of rules was cold iu colour and commonplace in 

 conception, yet learned in the theory of art, and better known by the 

 works of hia pen than of his pencil : he exercised no influence what- 

 ever over the style of his scholar, who soon discovered that his new 

 master could not give him that which he felt was wanting. After 

 five years' nominal instruction, VeMzquez married Juana, Pacheco' s 

 daughter; and this explains his long continuance under an otherwise 

 unprofitable roof. Disappointed in his master, and thrown on him- 

 self, the young artist turned to Nature for his guide, and he followed 

 her faithfully to the end. He procured a peasant lad for a model and 

 painted him his commonplace forms, rags, and nakedness, under 

 every aspect and attitude. Necessity thus did for him what choice 

 had done for Caravaggio, the leader of the naturalist school in Italy; 

 who, in opposition to the classicists, painted men and things as they 

 were, rather than as they ought to be ; preferring the forcible, effective, 

 and even the low, if real, to the refined, ideal arid poetical. The early 

 impression made on VeMzquez was deep and indelible : it became the 

 blemish of his style ; it biassed the man throughout life, and warped 

 him from Raffaelle and Michel Angelo to Ribera and Stanzioni. The 

 study of this plebeian model was moreover cognate to the process 

 which Herrera first adopted for himself, and then pointed out to all 

 his bcholars. It forms a peculiarity in the system of the great school 

 of Seville, and especially in VeMzquez and Murillo, two of its brightest 

 ornaments ; they were taught to draw and to colour at the same time, 

 beginning with subject:-! of still-life, and those the most ordinary, such 

 as meat, vegetables, and kitchen utensils : hence the generic term 

 Bodegones, by which they are still known. Thus VeMzquez obtained 

 an early mastery over his materials, a habit of close imitation, and a 

 marvellous power of representing nature and texture. His first at- 

 tempts at pictures, properly speaking, were either copies from Ribera, 

 or compositions painted with his decided and hard outline, and his 

 strongly contrasted lights and shadows. His pictures of this period 

 are very scarce ; many probably exist, but remain unknown from 

 being ascribed to other artiste. The ' Adoration of the Shepherds, 

 now in the Louvre, is the earliest of his undoubted productions, anc 

 it is nothing more than a copy from Spagnoletto. 



Arrived at the age of twenty-three, some paintings of Luis Tristan 

 whose style was a compound of Titian and El Greco, inspired Ve 

 Mzquez with a burning desire to see the works of these and other 

 masters, and he left Seville for Madrid in the spring of 1622 : he was 

 welcomed by Don Juan Fonseca and other Sevillians, who were settlec 

 in the capital, who befriended their countryman with that spirit o 

 localism and clanship which is the characteristic of all Spaniards 

 VeMzquez, having painted the portrait of the poet Gongora, which 

 was a commission from Pacheco, returned to Seville ; meanwhile the 

 influence of Fonseca was not idle, and the young man was recallec 

 to Madrid, the next year, by the Conde Duque de Olivares, the ruler 

 of Spain, who was to Philip IV. what Buckingham was to our Charle 

 L, prime minister of the tastes and pleasures of his master. VeMzquez 

 having painted the great man's portrait, stepped at once into fame anc 

 fashion, which never deserted him during his long career of prosperity 

 He maintained by merit the start which was procured by favour ; no 

 can there be a greater proof of the high degree of excellence to which 

 he had already arrived than his immediate success. 



Philip IV., a true judge of art, on seeing the portrait of th 

 favourite, sat at once for his own. At this the critical moment of hi 

 fortunes the young artist put forth all his strength. The picture wa 

 exhibited in Madrid, near the steps of San Felipe" ; and there, in th 

 open air, did VeMzquez, like the painters of Greece, listen to th 

 praises of a delighted public. He was forthwith appointed the cour 

 painter; and Philip, apeing Alexander, according to the story i: 



lorace, ordained that none but this new Apelles should portray him. 

 'he necessity of frequently painting the "foolish hanging of the 

 ether lip" of this dull ungainly Austrian and his family was little 

 Calculated to correct a tendency to unworthy form, which was 

 ngendered by the ordinary model of his early studies. This 

 as again fixed by the constant introduction of hideous dwarfs, 

 hose abortions of nature, and playthings of the kings and princes 

 f Spain. 



Meanwhile the more he painted, the more VeMzquez was honoured 



>y his own and foreign princes, and among others by our Charles I., 



who was at Madrid in 1623. His portrait begun by VeMzquez, was 



icver finished, and has unfortunately been lost. Another illustrious 



isitor soon after became his friend, Rubens, who arrived at Madrid, 



August 6, 1 628, rather in the character of a diplomatist than a painter : 



ndeed he associated with none of the artists except VeMzquez, with 



whom alone he went to the Escurial. Rubens left Madrid, April 



26th, 1629, and although he was constantly painting during his 



ojourn, he wrought no change either in composition or colouring in 



VeMzquez, who was accustomed to look at nature with his own eyes 



and not through those of other men ; nor indeed had the gorgeous 



ints and fleshiness of the Fleming anything in common with the 



sober draperies of the sinewy Castilian. 



VeMzquez at last obtained the royal permission to go to Italy, and 

 ie embarked at Barcelona, August 10, 1629. He visited Venice, 

 ?errara, and Rome, being everywhere received in an artistical triumph. 

 Jrban VIII. assigned to him an apartment in the Vatican, where he 

 diligently copied Kaffaelle and Michel Angelo ; but neither the 

 randiose design and sublimity of the one, nor the sentiment and 

 deal beauty of the other, ever produced the slightest change in the 

 ""'paniard's style : he felt and studied their brightness without ever 

 reflecting in his own works one single ray. VeMzquez, like his friend 

 Lope de Vega, held up the mirror to his own age alone : he called 

 up no recollections of the past, borrowed from no other period or 

 ountry, and none can claim anything back from him ; all was his 

 own, original, national, and idiosyncratic ; and he shrunk from any . 

 change by which loss might be risked. The Spaniard is neither a 

 Tiend to the foreigner nor to his innovations. Nor was Italy then what 

 she had been ; the prestige of her example had passed away with 

 ;he age of Leo X., and the vitality of her soil for new excellence was 

 dull when compared to the fierce energy of unexhausted Spain, then 

 starting into a life of her own. VeMzquez and Murillo were 

 destined to revive the arts, which declined in Italy, as Seneca, 

 Martial, and Lucan had renewed the literature of Rome in her period 

 of decay. 



From the Vatican VeMzquez removed to the Villa de' Medici, but 

 falling a victim to malaria, was soon carried down an invalid to the 

 Piazza de Spagna below, and lodged in the palace of the Condd de 

 Monterey, the ambassador of Spain. The ambassador was a patron 

 of art and artists, both from real taste and the diplomatic anxiety to 

 second the ruling object of his king. He watched over his patient 

 and restored him to health. VeMzquez remained a year in Rome; 

 he only sent home two original pictures, his ' Jacob with the Garment 

 of Joseph,' and 'Ap'ollo at the Forge of Vulcan;' both are now at 

 Madrid, and in spite of much truth, character, and powerful painting, 

 are singularly marked with the most ordinary forms. The children 

 of Jacob are the kinsmen of the model peasant, and Vulcan is a 

 mere farrier, and his assistants brawny Gallicians. It would seem 

 that the Spaniard, to prove his independence, had lowered his lowest 

 transcript of nature to brave the ideal and divine under the shadow of 

 Raffaelle himself. 



From Rome he passed to Naples, then a Spanish possession, where 

 he felt at home amid the works of Caravaggio, Stanzioni, and Ribera. 

 With Ribera, his countryman, he lived in the closest intimacy, pre- 

 ferring however to his harder style and coarse subjects the flowing 

 touch and cheerful composition of Stanzioni, between whose style 

 and his own the resemblance cannot be mistaken. This artist, 

 called in Spain el Caballero Maximo, was the type of the Hispano- 

 Neapolitan school ; many of his finest pictures were purchased by 

 VeMzquez for Philip IV., and, hung- as they are near his own in the 

 gallery of Madrid, abound in analogies of touch and method. 



VeMzquez returned to Madrid early in 1631, and being necessary to 

 the amusement of his patron found himself not forgotten : the king, 

 with a fidelity which was no part of his nature, had never during his 

 absence sat to any other painter. Philip, imitating Urban VIII., 

 gave him a painting-room in the palace, and came daily to watch his 

 progress. 



It is to the credit of the Austrian dynasty that they relaxed in 

 favour of the fine arts the rigid ceremonial of Spanish etiquette. 

 Charles V. made a friend of Titian ; and Philip II., of Herrera the 

 architect. VeMzquez now painted the magnificent equestrian portrait 

 of Philip IV., from which the great carver Montaiiez made a model 

 in wood, in order to be sent to Florence, where it was cast in bronze 

 by Pedro Tacca, and now exists in the gardens of Buen Retiro. The 

 success led to new honours : VeMzquez was appointed to an office 

 about the king's person, and in that capacity followed Philip into 

 Aragon and Catalonia in 1643 and 1644. The former of these years 

 witnessed the disgrace of the Conde Duque, to whom, although 

 iallen, VeMzquez had the boldness to continue to show respect; nor 



