The President and Fellows of Harvard College

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

Velázquez and Naturalism II: Interpreting "Las Meninas"Author(s): Emily UmbergerSource: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 28 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 94-117Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard College acting through the Peabody Museum ofArchaeology and EthnologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20166932 .Accessed: 25/01/2011 19:50

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94 RES 28 AUTUMN 1995

Figure 1. Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas, 1656. Oil on canvas, 321 x 281 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Photo: Courtesy of Museo del Prado.

Velazquez and naturalism II

Interpreting Las Meninas

EMILY UMBERGER

Diego Velazquez's (1599-1660) group portrait of

1656, Las Meninas (fig. 1), has been the object of

much speculation since its intellectual rediscovery in

the late nineteenth century. In recent decades it has

become the subject of divergent interpretations and

even sharp disagreement.1 As characterized by Svetlana

Alpers (1983), the split is between those, like herself, who see the painting's meaning primarily in its

revolutionary representational qualities and those who

seek to reconstruct an iconography. Alpers emphasizes the contribution of formal qualities to meaning and,

along with an increasing number of recent scholars, declares art history's traditional iconographie approach too limited to handle the task of comprehending form

and meaning together.2 In the case of Las Meninas she

objects both to the stories invented to explain the

depicted activities and to the motivations hypothesized for the painting's creation, as in Jonathan Brown's

study of 1978. I, too, am dissatisfied with the current

trend in art historical exegesis. I see the iconographies

suggested so far for Las Meninas as too narrowly

conceived, and I agree with Alpers that they fail to

recognize the extent to which the painting's mode of

representation is part of an intended message. While

not suggesting a plot, however, I do argue that Las

Meninas contains a traditional iconography that alludes

to verbally articulated ideas through allegory. As background to this alternate reading I refer to the

play Darlo todo y no dar nada (To give all and to give

nothing) by Velazquez's contemporary, the court

poet-playwright Pedro Calder?n de la Barca

(1600-1681). In the play Calder?n used the story of

Alexander the Great and his painter Apelles to express

thoughts on theoretical matters that would have been

of concern to both himself, as a verbal artist, and

Velazquez, as a visual artist. Velazquez's biographer Antonio Palomino later compared Philip IV's (r. 1621

1665) habit of visiting his studio with Alexander's visits

to watch Apelles at work (1947:904), and Brown has

suggested that the representation of such a visit

(through implication) in Las Meninas was probably meant to recall the classical precedent.3 Brown's

interpretation centers, however, on Velazquez's private ambitions and the king's support of these in an

argument involving the struggles of seventeenth-century artists for recognition of the liberal arts status of

painting (1978; 1986:253-264).4 It is the premise of

this paper that such personal issues are reflected in

generalized form in the painting's imagery, but that

they are embedded in allusions to theoretical issues

involving portraiture, and through portraiture,

representation in general. In addition, I suggest that

Calder?n's play provides an articulate exposition of

these issues as they might have been voiced by

Velazquez himself.

The argument ultimately hinges on two darkened

paintings on the back wall of the depicted space, and,

I thank David Rosand and Lisa Vergara for helpful suggestions on

a student paper on the subject of Las Meninas. Cynthia Elmas, Betsy

Fahlman, Vivien Fryd, Anthony Gully, Linda McAllister, and

Francesco Pellizzi provided valuable suggestions on content,

translations, and editorial matters. I am grateful to the School of Art of

Arizona State University for covering the cost of photographs, and the

College of Fine Arts of Arizona State University for a research grant to

travel to Madrid in 1994. Finally, I thank Dr. Angeles Garc?a Pardo for

her hospitality during my stay in Madrid. For Emily, Margaret, and Alex.

1. This is the second of two articles reading paintings by

Velazquez against the background of the Spanish court and its

intellectual climate. For the first, on Los Borrachos (1629, Prado), see

Umberger (1993). Much has been written on Las Meninas. Cited here

are only those works pertinent to the arguments presented. For further

bibliography, see Brown (1978) and Wohl (1987). For references to

what it was called at different dates and where it was located, see

L?pez-Rey (1979:502-503).

2. Reactions are centered on Panofsky's explication of 1939 of

the concepts of iconography and iconology (Panofsky 1972). For a

recent overview of the problems of attaching meaning to paintings, see Cassidy (1993:3-15).

3. Palomino's biography of 1715-24 is the most complete on

Velazquez's life (1947:891-936). For confirmations of its value as a

primary source, despite its later date, see Brown (1986:253-256) and

Veliz (1986:141-142). The biographer of Velazquez's early life was

Francisco Pacheco, his father-in-law and teacher (1956, 1:155-166). 4. See also Kahr's similar explication of the painting's

iconography, which, however, puts more emphasis on the importance of the Apelles story and the painting's relationship to northern gallery

pictures (1975; 1976:chap. 3).

96 RES 28 AUTUMN 1995

in doing so, grapples with another problem that lurks

behind all discussions of meaning in Las Meninas. That

is, should these barely visible mythological subjects within such a self-consciously naturalistic composition be seen as performing the traditional allegorical function of the painting-within-a-painting? Although no

one has addressed this point directly, it is one on

which modern scholars seem to vacillate. Las Meninas

was appreciated by nineteenth-century scholars

conditioned by contemporary art movements, notably

Impressionism, for its spontaneous arrangement,

painterly brushwork, and effects of light and color (for

example, Justi 1889:414-422). Notwithstanding our

knowledge that Velazquez's naturalism was part of a

very different complex of ideas, we are influenced by these earlier perceptions to the neglect of other aspects of his art. We now know the extent to which the

palace environment in which Velazquez worked was

infused with allegorical thinking?in the theatrical

performances, paintings on the walls, poems composed

by courtiers, and even everyday speech?but we are

still uneasy about suggesting the presence of such

artifices in a "modern" painting like Las Meninas.

In this view of Velazquez's naturalism we follow, albeit with very different feelings and motivations,

Velazquez's most critical contemporary, the

conservative Italianate artist and theorist Vicente

Carducho (1576-1638).5 Carducho knew Velazquez in

the 1620s when the latter was adapting to the demands

of his new position at court, and, as a hostile rival, he

wished to group the young artist with those extremists

whom he characterized disapprovingly as direct and

uneducated imitators of nature. The testimonies of his

biographers, however, and the evidence of the

paintings themselves demonstrate that Velazquez

aspired to (and eventually achieved to a superior

degree), not untempered naturalism but the

contemporary ideal of "learned painting" (docta

pintura) as espoused by Carducho himself.6 He was a

painter of reality who "relied on nature for everything" (Pacheco 1956, 2:13), but he studied equally and used

the scientific treatises of his profession, the visual

inventions of his predecessors,7 and the literary figures of classical and contemporary authors.8

Las Meninas must be recognized as an intentionally inextricable mix of nature and art, with the elements of

art identifiable to the seventeenth-century viewer to

greater or lesser degree depending on his knowledge. Thus, the task of the modern iconographer in the

reading of such a painting is a difficult one. In addition to reconstructing the historical events and artistic

background against which the painting might be

understood, he or she must attempt to hypothesize which events and issues are alluded to in its clues; how these clues are structured within the pictorial composition; how the various ideas evoked might be

connected by the seventeenth-century court viewer; and which viewers, readings, and additional resonances the artist might have anticipated.

The pictorial structure

The largest composition in Velazquez's oeuvre,

measuring 3.21 meters high by 2.81 meters wide, Las

Meninas conveys, seemingly, a view of everyday

palace life. The room depicted is a real space, an

apartment in the Madrid palace, the Alc?zar, before its

destruction by fire in 1734 (Brown 1978:99-101; Moffitt 1980; Orso 1986:166-167). The paintings on

the walls, Spanish copies of mythological compositions by Rubens, are recorded in inventories as having hung on those walls (Orso 1986:chap. 5). The occupants of the room are real people, members of the court, all but one identified by name (Palomino 1947:920-922; S?nchez Cant?n 1952). Although one might expect the

subjects of this canvas and its size to be more

5. Carducho's thoughts are known from his treatise of 1633,

written during and published soon after a period of strife between the

two artists (see Umberger 1993).

6. Palomino emphasizes Velazquez's learning in his biography

(1947:891-895, 930). Given Carducho's antipathy to the artist, it is

ironic that the mature Velazquez was to be the most learned artist of

his acquaintance. Yet Velazquez's definition of learning went beyond

what Carducho envisioned and excluded the blatant moral message

that the older man, as a post-Tr?dentine thinker, thought necessary.

7. The inventive use of types and models was not considered a

mere exercise in the seventeenth century; it was a necessary

prerequisite for "learned painting." Carducho, in fact, placed the study of the great works of the past in opposition to the practices of a

painter like Caravaggio, who (putatively) copied nature directly on the

canvas (for example, 1633:52r, 54r, 89r-89v). Such quotes could also

convey meaning; see, for instance, Umberger on Los Borrachos

(1993) and Seidel on Las Meninas (1993). 8. Among the early authors who effected this change in our

thinking on Velazquez were S?nchez Cant?n (1925), who by

publishing the inventory of Velazquez's library indicated the breadth

of his learning; Diego ?ngulo I?iguez (1947), who first revealed the

extent to which he studied the compositions of predecessors; and

Charles de Tolnay (1949), who in his study of Las Meninas and

another great composition, Las Hilanderas, first discussed

compositional precedents for these two and literary allusions, that is,

iconography.

Umberger: Velazquez and naturalism II 97

appropriate to formal portraiture and history painting, the positioning, gestures, and movements of the figures are natural and spontaneous, as was customary in

genre painting (Brown 1978:87). The setting is the principal room of the apartments

previously assigned to the Infante Baltasar Carlos

(1629-1646), Philip IV's son and heir to the throne.

After his death the space was redecorated?probably by the artist himself?and, although not his regular

workshop, it seems to have been used by Velazquez at

least on this one occasion (Orso 1986:173-174). At the center of the composition stands the five-year-old Infanta Margarita, at the time the only child of Philip IV

and his second wife, Mariana, whose images are

reflected in the mirror on the wall behind her. With

regal poise and adult dignity, the child has turned her

head and looks out into the space occupied by the

spectator, while two flanking maids-of-honor (meninas) from noble families tend to her. The kneeling Do?a

Mar?a Augustina Sarmiento offers her a drink from a

small pitcher, and Do?a Isabel de Velasco bends toward her while glancing in the same direction as the

princess. Further to the left, Velazquez himself, holding brush and palette, leans out from behind a large canvas

and likewise gazes at the spectator. In the right

foreground is a dwarf, the adult Marib?rbola, and a

midget, the child Nicol?s Pertusato, who places his

foot on the back of a large dog. Behind them a woman

dressed as a widow, the lady-in-waiting Do?a Marcela

de Ulloa, and her unidentified escort converse. At the

back of the room to the right of the mirror Jos? Nieto

Velazquez, standing in a brightly lit doorway, pauses to

look back across the depicted space. Nieto, as the chamberlain (aposentador) in charge of the queen's household, held an office comparable to Velazquez's own?the king's aposentador (Alpers 1983:32-33). (The two men had the same maternal surname but seem not

to have been related.)

Finally, although unseen, the object of

attention?whose presence before the painting is

implied by the glances of six of the nine people?is

generally acknowledged to be either the king alone or

the king and queen, posing for a portrait or entering the room to witness the creation of the painting. Such an event is described in an account of the history of

Las Meninas itself. According to Palomino, "this

painting was very esteemed by his Majesty, and so

much that he visited frequently to see it painted; and

likewise the queen Our Lady Do?a Mariana of Austria came down many times and the princesses, and ladies"

(1947:921).

Despite all of its qualities of reality and their natural

presentation, years of scholarly perusal have suggested and revealed a complex of artifices behind the

composition. This is a very structured reality; as J. A.

Emmens has commented, "one must distinguish the

'invention' of the canvas from its style of painting" (1961:51). What were the visual precedents for Las

Meninas? The portrayal of a room in a palace or noble

house decorated with paintings is reminiscent of a type common in the Netherlands, called the gallery picture, and the angle of presentation of the room?with

windows on one side, door opening in back, and

empty upper reaches?is seen in both Netherlandish

and German precedents (Kubier 1966; Kahr 1975). Some gallery pictures also include patrons and artists, either Alexander and Apelles or contemporary patrons and artists (Kahr 1975:230-237). Even the device of

depicting an artist/performer within the room while

implying the presence of his subject/patron outside is

found in earlier northern examples (Kubier 1966;

Steinberg 1981:46-47). Finally, the mirror that

accomplishes this last effect in Las Meninas, apparently itself an invention for the composition (Orso 1986:170),

has as a distinguished predecessor Arnolfini Portrait

(1434) by Jan van Eyck (before 1395-1441), which was

in the Spanish royal collections at the time (Tolnay 1949:34).9

In contrast to these suggested sources for the setting few have been offered for the disposition of figures.

What observers consider an arrangement without

obvious precedents, however, vaguely reflects elements of earlier Italianate groupings and poses. From this

point of view, the figures fall into three groups: the six

in the foreground, the conversing pair in the right middle ground, and the single figure in active pose between the room and a more distant space in the

background. Similar arrangements and figure types are

found in such compositions as Tintoretto's Christ in the

House of Mary and Martha (Pinakothek, Munich), Veronese's Finding of Moses (Prado), and El Greco's

Purification of the Temple (fig. 2; The Frick Collection, New York). These, too, have a multifigure foreground group, a conversing couple to the side and somewhat

behind the group (one with a hand at breast level), and

a figure in active pose (twisting, with one arm raised

and one leg bent) and diminished in size to introduce

9. See also Seidel's recent interpretation of Las Meninas as a

"repainting" of the Arnolfini Portrait in reverse (1993:190-205), an

idea brought up again later in this essay.

98 RES 28 AUTUMN 1995

Figure 2. El Greco, Purification of the Temple, ca. 1595-1600. Oil on canvas, 42 x 53 cm. The

Frick Collection, New York. Photo: Courtesy of The Frick Collection.

an opening or corridor of space into the more distant

background. Without precedent even in Velazquez's own oeuvre

is the careful orchestration of colors, light effects, and

shapes in a system of correspondences simultaneously

linking and contrasting figures and objects across the

canvas, or linking and distancing them along diagonal lines from front to back, in an almost inexhaustible

number of combinations.10 In addition to demonstrating the different aspects of his art these devices were most

likely meant by the artist to provide an intellectual

puzzle especially for the educated viewer. Essential to

its structure is the complex geometry of the

composition (the lines of the room itself and the

patterned arrangement of rectangular shapes on the

back wall), the correspondences and contrasts between

these shapes, and their relationships with the figures before them. Among the results of this structuring are

the puzzling perspective of the composition?with its

play between three different centers in different

reconstructions?and the implied correspondences and

interactions with imagined spectators in the space before the canvas.

Also basic to the composition is the grouping of

motifs in twos and threes. All figures in the painting, with the exception of the centralized princess, fall into

pairs: the two aposentadores in black, the two

meninas, the dwarf and the midget, the two chaperons, and the royal couple (notice also the balance between

males and females). This coupling is not inflexible:

further pairings suggest contrasts, as between the

princess and the female dwarf; and groups of three are

10. The only comparable composition in this respect is his

Surrender of Breda (1635, Prado). There are a number of fascinating

descriptions of Las Meninas (for example, Foucault, 1973:3-16). The

following analyzes it as a fixed structure. For one that considers its

shifting visual qualities, see Steinberg (1981).

Umberger: Velazquez and naturalism II 99

also formed, as in the flanking meninas and central

princess (see also Kahr 1975:225; Steinberg 1981:53). The play between twos and threes is set up in the

rectangles on the back wall, the two large paintings above the three smaller frames of the mirror flanked by two doors. These are compositionally linked with the

pair of aposentadores and the trio of females in the

foreground. Most important is the anchoring of the two

palace officials, the distant Nieto Velazquez and the

closer Diego Velazquez, to the architectural setting. One would pair them on a diagonal axis because of

their similar black garb, three-quarter-length poses, and

placement to the right of the brown grids of the door

and the back of the canvas, respectively. At the same

time, their heads are roughly centered under the two

large paintings on the back wall, but Velazquez stands

in front of the left-hand door and Nieto stands behind

the right-hand door. In this manner they are linked to

the geometric framework in both two- and three

dimensional readings of the composition, while framing the central mirror image of the monarchs; but they are

also distanced from each other and create depth in the

composition through their relative scale.

In contrast, the heads of the three females in the

foreground are located (at different levels) to the right of the lower trio of door frames and mirror. Thus, as

the eye moves from the background wall to foreground

figures, the composition's focal point shifts from the

mirror between the two doors (and their associated

male figures) to the princess between the two meninas.

Her head is at the actual, horizontal center of the canvas.

Adding to the complexity of the composition is the

fact that the mirror and the right doorway form a pair within the group of three lower frames?because of

their luminosity and the similar scale of the figures they contain?in contrast to the dark, closed door to the left

and behind Velazquez. Further, the mirror's surface and

the bright area of the door are of about the same size

and level and both have curtains draped from one side.

However, the ghostly ?mages of the king and queen

emerging from a dark background contrast with the

dark silhouette of Nieto against the bright light. There

is, in fact, a tension between these two areas. The

mirror is centered on the back wall, but the eye is

pulled toward the doorway by the vanishing point of

the lines of the architecture located behind its enclosed

figure, Nieto, as well as the brighter light of the

background. Thus, the focus of the composition shifts,

according to which clues the viewer chooses at a

particular moment, between three points in a triangle,

the mirror, the door, and the princess in front and

between them (Steinberg 1981:51). The projection of these structural relationships into

the area before the painting gives rise to another set of

questions concerning what cannot be seen: the

number, identity, and viewpoint(s) of the observer(s) in

front of it, the subject of the canvas on which

Velazquez is painting, and the source of the mirror

image. The (modern) viewer is compelled to speculate on these questions because of the near life-size scale of

the composition that seemingly invites entrance (Alpers

1983:31), the invisibility of the image on the canvas,

and, most of all, the unusual outward orientation of the

painting, where six of the nine personages look out

into the viewer's space and the mirror ?mage seems to

imply who is in that space. There are three schools of

thought on the subject of the canvas: that Velazquez is

portraying the princess, that he is painting Las Meninas

itself, or that he is depicting the king and queen posed

according to the mirror image. The mirror is thought to

reflect the actual forms of the king and queen as they see themselves across the room, the center of the

painting on which Velazquez paints (either a portrait of

the king and queen or the mirror image in Las

Meninas), or both the king and queen as seen by themselves and the center of the canvas as seen by an

observer to their right, simultaneously. I believe the

following views to be the most convincing.

First, it is important to credit George Kubler's insight (1985) that the mirror reflection cannot represent the

king and queen's view of themselves across the room, as this would be optically impossible. If they were

observing their own reflections from such a distance, these would be tiny and much of the room would be

encompassed. Instead, Charles Moffitt's reconstruction

of the perspective from which the mirror is seen is

most convincing (1980:281-287, fig. 3). Moffitt

suggests that if the viewer stands to the right of the

mirror and opposite Nieto, as the location of the

vanishing point demands, he is seeing the scene

through a doorway at the opposite end of the room (as revealed in the plan of palace). From this point of view

the mirror reflects whatever is at the same angle to its

left, that is, it must be reflecting a portion of the canvas

on which Velazquez is painting. As Moffitt points out

(1980:286), this is what Palomino says of the mirror

image. If the viewer is standing further from the mirror

than the canvas (as he is here), the part of the canvas

visible in the mirror is magnified so that the bust

portraits of the monarchs occupy its expanse. It is most

likely then that the mirror is meant to reflect the

100 RES 28 AUTUMN 1995

Figure 3. Peter Paul Rubens, Pallas and Arachne, ca. 1636. Oil on panel, 27 x 38 cm.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond. Photo: Courtesy of Virginia Museum of Fine

Arts, The Williams Fund.

canvas, which in some form includes a double portrait of the king and queen (see also Snyder and Cohen

1980, who come to the same general conclusions). If one accepts the idea of one intended viewpoint or

observer, it is logical to accept Brown's hypothesis that

the one observer for whom it was created was Philip IV

(Brown, 1978:90; 1986:259, 303, note 62). As Brown

notes, Las Meninas was probably made for the space in

which it was later recorded as hanging, the king's office in the summer quarters (pieza del despacho de

verano), located on the floor above and accessible to

the depicted room by a stairway beyond the doorway that the viewer enters in Moffitt's reconstruction. Moffitt

also suggests that the painting could have been hung in

this office directly above the spot occupied by the

viewer of the painting (1980:277, fig. 2).

Seventeenth-century theorists would concur with

modern scholars that a one-point (Albertian)

perspective puts the viewer in a position of power, but in a painting like Las Meninas, which, as we will see, in every respect addresses the king, it is not logical to

think of the artist as implying his own presence at this

point. The painting is, of course, his vision, but like a

palace theatrical production that it resembles in various

ways, the setting is staged so that the king commands

the perspective (Varey 1984:401; Brown 1986:303, note 62; Greer 1991:82-85, fig. 11). The queen's

presence beside him, also as in the theater, seems to be

implied by the mirror image, but this is not

demonstrable.11

Events and issues

Recent iconographie interpretations of Las Meninas

should be characterized as variations on a theme: most

scholars who focus on this aspect of the painting in

some way or other see it against the background of

contemporary seventeenth-century arguments about the

social and intellectual status of the art of painting and

its practitioners. Some include the large paintings on

the back wall in the argument and some do not. In the

11. Some scholars suggest multiple observers or a primary observer other than the king. Alpers's wish to account for the artist's

presence outside, as main viewer, as well as inside the canvas

(1983:37, 42, note 10) is both too literal and too modern. I also

belive that the artist did not map out the perspective to allow for an

anonymous viewer in this position opposite the vanishing point. Those who argue for the latter put the king and queen opposite the

mirror (for example, Mestre Fiol 1972).

Umberger: Velazquez and naturalism II 101

earliest of these interpretations Charles de Tolnay

suggested an allegorical role for them (1949:32-33). The paintings were Spanish copies of Rubens's

compositions of two scenes from Ovid's

Metamorphoses, the weaving contest between

Pallas/Minerva and Arachne and the music contest

between Apollo and Pan, which now exist only in oil

sketches (figs. 3-4). Tolnay suggested that in depicting contests between gods and mortals these ?mages may have represented for Velazquez the triumph of divine art over human craft, in keeping with his self-depiction in the act of inspired gazing rather than the application

of paint. (Tolnay actually misidentified the second

painting as one of Apollo and Marsyas, but this does not affect his general interpretation.) Kubler's article of

1966 brought this type of reading in line with a more

tangible issue dwelt on in contemporary treatises, and of great importance to Spanish painters. He saw the

mythological paintings as demonstrating that painting, as represented by the Arachne picture, was a liberal art

equal to music, as represented by the Apollo and Pan one (correctly identified first in Emmens 1961:57). In

Spain, at the time, painters were still fighting the battle for the recognition of liberal arts status, which involved

their exemption from taxation and conscription. Kubier

also noted that by representing himself in the same

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Figure 4. Peter Paul Rubens, Apollo and Pan, ca. 1636. Oil on panel, 26.5 x 38 cm. Mus?es Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. Photo: Courtesy of

Mus?es Royaux des Beaux-Arts.

room with the king, Velazquez was subtly referring to

the idea of the nobility of painting, by association with

monarchs.

The most widely accepted interpretation along this

line is Brown's (1978; 1986:253-264; see also, Kahr

1975; 1976:chap. 3). Influenced by Jos? Ortega y Gasset's biography of Velazquez of 1943

(1972:84-106), as well as those by Tolnay and Kubier, Brown placed Las Meninas in a more personal context,

relating it to Velazquez's pretensions to nobility, his bid in the 1650s for knighthood in the prestigious order of

Santiago. As stated at the outset, Brown has suggested that the implied presence of the king outside the

painting would have reminded the mid-seventeenth

century viewer of the relationship between Alexander

and Apelles, as well as several more recent artists

knighted by kings, notably Titian and Rubens, whose

examples were typically cited as proof of the elevated status of painting. Brown also sees the sophistication of

the composition of Las Meninas as aiming to

demonstrate that painting was an intellectual pursuit rather than just a craft, thus supporting Velazquez's

personal ambitions: a practitioner of Velazquez's ability was more than a gifted manual laborer, and was

therefore entitled to maintain his birth claims to noble status while practicing the liberal art of painting.

102 RES 28 AUTUMN 1995

Granted the currency of these ideas and issues, Alexander and Apelles appeared in another context of

equal importance to seventeenth-century artists, which

more closely fits with both the allegorical clues and

representational qualities of Las Meninas?2 They are

featured in theoretical discussions about the nature and

function of portraiture and, on a practical level, the

problem of creating truthful portraits that are not

offensive in their reality. The original anecdote, which

actually involves Apelles' portrayal of another king, is

found in Pliny's Natural History (Book 35:90):

He also painted a portrait of King Antigonos who was

blind of one eye, being the first to devise a means of

concealing the infirmity by presenting his profile, so that the absence of the eye would be attributed merely to the

position of the sitter, not to a natural defect, for he gave

only the part of the face which could be shown uninjured. Pliny 1968:127

The anecdote is repeated in Francisco Pacheco's

treatise, El arte de la pintura (1649), translated into the

language of opposing categories typical of

seventeenth-century Spanish treatises (and their Italian

predecessors):13 "Apelles was praised for having

portrayed in profile King Antigonos, who was blind in

one eye, having posed him from the healthy side. . . .

This is a discretion (prudencia) which can be used with

important persons, without detriment to the truth (la

verdad)" (1956, 1:105).14 The most interesting restatement of the story is found

in Calder?n's play Darlo todo y no dar nada, which

was performed seemingly twice at court in the years before Las Meninas was painted?in 1651 and/or 1653.15 Calder?n's deposition of 1677 in which he

defended painting as a liberal art is the document

usually cited by art historians as indicative of his ideas, but the dramas are equally, if not more, interesting for

their implicit and at times explicit theoretical content.16

Calder?n, like Velazquez, faced the problem of

addressing royalty, whose persons, actions, and

characters he portrayed, albeit allegorically and in

generalized terms. He also used painted and sculpted

portraits as important dramatic elements in a number of

plays, and artists as major characters in several (Ter Horst 1982b). In fact, Calder?n used the visual arts to

stand for his own art at a time when poetry and

painting were considered closely related. A court

portraitist is one of the protagonists of Darlo todo,

portraits appear at several points in the plot, and the

nature of portraiture is dwelt on at length. One scene

not only addresses the same issues alluded to in Las

Meninas (to be argued below) but also contains details

referring particularly to the contemporary Spanish court.

In this scene Alexander is judging a painting contest

between portraits of himself by Apelles and two other

artists, Zeuxis and Temanthes. Alexander has a bad

eye, which Temanthes does not represent at all, while

Zeuxis represents the fault in great detail. Apelles

compromises by representing Alexander in

three-quarter view so that a shadow falls over his bad

side, thereby playing down the fault without omitting it

altogether. Apelles is rewarded by being appointed

painter of the chamber (pintor de c?mara). The scene is

worth quoting at length:

Alexander (upon examining Timanthes' painting): This is not my portrait.

Timanthes: Why? Alexander: Because I do not see in it that spot (mancha),

which is the blemish (borr?n) on my face, your brush

having put all its skill into disguising it. In not telling me

of it (decfrmela) you have been a flatterer (lisonjero), it

being almost treason (traici?n), that you lie to me in my face. This portrait gives a vile example, in which no one

speaks to his king of his defects. Then how [can] he emend them if he never [comes] to know of them? . . .

Give me yours Zeuxis.

12. See also Alpers's critique of this strain of interpretation

(1983:41, note 5).

13. On such artistic polarities in general, see McKim-Smith et al.

for Spain (1988:15-33) and Michael Baxandall for Italy (1971 :chap. 2).

14. For prudencia, other authors use the words respeto, decoro, and discreci?n; for verdad: lo natural, imitaci?n, semejanza, and lo

parecido. 15. The play is recorded as having been performed on 22

December 1651 for Queen Mariana's birthday and in celebration of

her recovered good health in 1653 (Reichenberger 1979:203). It was

published in 1657 in Octava parte de comedias nuevas escogidas. The title is made comprehensible in the final scene as relating to

the giving of Campaspe to Apelles, in a complex play on the multiple senses of the words (see Calder?n 1959:1223, 1269-1270). It might also be understood as referring to the giving of "all and nothing" in

the painted portrayals of the characters, again in multiple senses. In a

negative sense this would entail the revealing of superficial likeness

through physical details (darlo todo), but not the soul (nada)) in a

positive sense, it would entail the revealing of true likeness, including

the soul (todo), without physical details (nada). See further discussion

of Velazquez's technique below.

16. As first noted by Curtius in his article of 1948 on Calder?n's

art theories (1963). For discussion of Calder?n's ideas about art by

other literary historians, see Hesse (1952, on Calder?n and

Velazquez); Gates (1961); and Ter Horst, whose work is especially

important for the following discussion (1982a:part 3, where Darlo

todo is treated in detail; 1982b). For Calder?n's deposition, see

Wilson (1974).

Umberger: Velazquez and naturalism II 103

Zeuxis (aside): At least in this one I quiet nothing (no le callo nada).

Alexander: Yours is more like (parecido); but is no less

culpable.

Zeuxis: In what, Sire?

Alexander: In that I see my defect in it, so blatant, that I

believe you have put all your effort into telling me of it; so that I am as offended by this as the other; since that

which in one is flattery (lisonja) in the other is effrontery (atrevimiento). Neither is this an example for the world ... no one ignorant should speak his feelings to his

king's face [literally, to his king in his face]; if to silence them is a type of treason, it is no less a form of

disrespect to declare them openly. . . .

Apelles, let us

see your portrait.

Apelles: I offer it with apprehension. Alexander: Why?

. . . Only you know how one must

speak to his king, since . . . the fault is neither said nor

quieted, [with] half of the face casting a shadow on the other half. You have found a good way of speaking and

quieting discretely . . . [in] leaving [the defect] underneath you inform (awsa) me that I have it, with such decorum (decoro), that respect cannot be offended. ... No one but Apelles can portray me from now on, as

my pintor de c?mara.

Calder?n 1959:1230-1231

Calder?n is treating a broader theme found in

contemporary political treatises as well as other of his

plays: the difficulty of delivering unpleasant truths

diplomatically to those in power (Greer 1991:79-82). What is of interest here is how this version reflects his

theories on art and how he changed the anecdote to

make it more particular to the court. He made the king Alexander rather than the visiting Antigonos, thus

immediately bringing to mind Philip and Velazquez, and he structured the scene to allude to an important event of the 1620s. By expanding the simple example of one artist's cleverness into a contest involving several artists, with the winner receiving a position at

court, he was recalling the painting contest of 1627

between court artists that Philip held on Velazquez's behalf and after which he made him usher of the

chamber?soon to be followed by his appointment as

pintor de c?mara (Umberger 1993:25-26). This was

just the first of many competitions in Velazquez's career; all of his subsequent court appointments were a

matter of contention, with the artist's candidacy always contested and the appointment granted through the

intercession of the monarch.17

On the theoretical level, Calder?n has Apelles solve

the problem of the sometimes conflicting goals of

likeness and decorum, what Pacheco had called truth

and prudence, in royal portrayals, a challenge for

Velazquez throughout his career. Calder?n has Zeuxis

and Temanthes represent the two sides, which have

become the unacceptable extremes of effrontery (atrevimiento) and lying flattery (lisonja). Apelles, like

Velazquez, avoided both extremes. Although the

contest of 1627 involved history painting, the issue of

naturalism in portraiture was at the heart of the

conflicts dividing the court artists. Philip called for the

contest, in fact, to defend Velazquez against accusations that he could "paint only a head," with the

implication that he copied it directly without

improvement, thus risking the inclusion of insulting

improprieties, and, additionally, that he was incapable of more ambitious compositions.

The imagery in Las Meninas differs from the play, but there are unmistakable parallels: the king is in the

artist's studio; his portrait is being painted; there is a

reference in the mirror to the truth of the portrayal; there are allusions to artistic competition in both

allegorical paintings; and one of these paintings depicts an artist who portrays her superiors with atrevimiento

(her creation is not a portrait in the strict sense but is

still a portrayal of sorts). The tie to court drama is also

apparent in the painting's stagelike presentation, in its

being addressed to the king as principal viewer, and in

the obvious pairings of people and motifs. The pairing of comparable but contrasting characters and concepts (the latter often through word plays) is constant

throughout Calder?n's plays.18 The structure of Las

Meninas mimics this, perhaps intentionally, to evoke a

playlike literary reading of its imagery. The two paintings, identified by Palomino as scenes

from the Metamorphoses by Rubens (1947:921), were

actually copies by Velazquez's son-in-law, Juan Bautista del Mazo, of oil sketches that Rubens had

made for the series of mythological subjects to

decorate the Torre de la Parada.19 They were hanging as depicted even in Palomino's time (L?pez-Rey 1979:502) and, although they are only dimly

17. For his court positions, see Brown (1978:103); for accounts of

the envy and competition that followed him throughout, see

Palomino's biography (1947:935 and elsewhere).

18. Such pairings also, of course, reflect the more general habit of

classifying ideas as opposing pairs in theoretical treatises.

19. For other discussions of the paintings, see Brown (1978:104, note 51), Emmens (1961:56-57), Kahr (1975:244-245), Moffitt

(1980:296-297, note 9), Orso (1986:chap. 5), and Seidel

(1993:190-192). For the Torre de la Parada paintings, see Alpers (1971).

104 RES 28 AUTUMN 1995

perceived, there is no doubt in my mind that they were

meant to be read in relation to the occupants of the room. Recent work by Orso and others makes it

obvious that paintings on the walls of the palace were

characteristically read in relation to the royal

inhabitants, either as positive examples and parallels or

negative contrasts and warnings (Orso 1986; Brown

and Elliott 1980). Velazquez himself was steeped in this

way of thinking about palace decor; by the time of the

painting of Las Meninas he had been in charge of the

decoration of several important rooms, including

possibly the one depicted.20 He and his fellow palace dwellers were conditioned too to identify mythological characters with public and court figures by dramas like

Calder?n's (Greer 1991:102-105), which give an idea

of how such references were verbalized.

That the subjects of thes paintings were generally

recognizable is implicit in Palomino's ekphrasis; and

the specific incidents pictured (as identified from

palace inventories) are readily interpretable in relation to the inhabitants of the room. They provide "moral

lessons" through negative contrasts to the good

relationship between Velazquez and his patron. The

Pallas and Arachne painting can be seen as

representing the punishment of the artist who infringes on due respect; and the Apollo and Pan painting, the

punishment of the judge who chooses an inferior artist.

The first relates to Velazquez who is standing directly below it, the second to Nieto below it, and both to the

king, who was simultaneously the subject and judge of

Velazquez's art. Velazquez has these paintings serve

the proper function of paintings in royal galleries, as

outlined by Carducho. "If it should be ... to the taste of the owner, to paint the stories of Virgil, Homer, and the fables of Ovid, try to demonstrate . . . the virtuous

moral contained within" (1633:108v-109r). In Ovid's story of Apollo and Pan (Metamorphoses

11, 85-193), Pan challenged Apollo to a music contest

and Timolus, the mountain god, was chosen as judge. First, Pan played on his pipes a barbaric song that

pleased Midas, who was also listening. When Apollo

played on his lyre, Timolus ordered Pan to lower his

pipes. All approved except Midas who began to argue,

questioning the judgment. Apollo, thinking Midas's ears

less than human, changed them into those of an ass. In

the Rubens painting the moment depicted is one of

punishment and reward. As Timolus places the wreath

of victory on Apollo's head, Apollo with a gesture

changes Midas's ears. Midas then is a foolish judge who chooses an obviously inferior performer. In

contrast, Philip IV was a wise judge who chose

Velazquez for his artist and subsequently backed him

for a series of positions at court. Most recently, in

1652, one year after the first performance of Darlo todo

and four years before the creation of Las Meninas,

Philip had supported Velazquez's candidacy for

aposentador over that of Nieto, among others (S?nchez Cant?n 1952:19). Still unrealized at the time of the

painting was Velazquez's bid for knighthood; so this

ambition has to be considered as a further implication of Las Meninas' imagery. Support of Velazquez in this

respect could also be seen as an objective of

Calder?n's play, as he emphasized Apeles' mobility and that of his art (Ter Horst 1982a:180). The message in Las Meninas, however, is a generalized one; there is

nothing to indicate that the painter was referring to his

ennoblement specifically.21 Above Velazquez is the painting of Arachne and

Pallas, Pallas (Minerva) being the goddess of painting (Carducho 1633: 52r). According to the

Metamorphoses (6, 5-145), Arachne, having gained fame as a weaver, boasted that her talent surpassed even that of Pallas, who had taught mortals the art.22 Arachne refused to submit to Pallas, and challenged her to a contest. Each wove tapestries representing her own point of view. Pallas depicted in the center of her

work the gods of Olympus around Jupiter on his

throne. In the corners she represented the punishment of mortals who had dared to defy the gods. Arachne

portrayed the misdeeds of the gods with mortal women: the follies of Jupiter, Neptune, Apollo, and

Bacchus, often in transformed, ungodly guises. "Neither

[Pallas], no, nor even Envy could find a flaw in the

work" (Ovid 1973:133). The goddess was furious, tore

the offensive tapestry to shreds, and beat Arachne over

the head with her shuttle, until the mortal could bear it no longer and hung herself. Pallas, in pity, brought her

back to life and turned her into a spider. The painting represents the moment of the goddess's violent attack

20. His participation in such projects may have begun as early as

the late 1620s, and the acquisition of works for the palace was the

stated mission of his second trip to Italy from 1649 to 1651.

21. Although aware of its later date, it has been difficult for

scholars to be uninfluenced by the presence of the cross of Santiago on Velazquez's chest. It was, of course, an extremely apt addition, but

it was not part of the original painting in 1656, since Velazquez was

not inducted into the order until 1659.

22. Velazquez had a copy of the Metamorphoses (item #563,

"Metamorfoseos en romance," in the inventory of his goods drawn up at his death; S?nchez Cant?n 1925).

Umberger: Velazquez and naturalism II 105

on Arachne. Hanging on the right side is Arachne's

tapestry depicting Jupiter's rape of Europa, in a loose

takeoff from the Titian painting that was also in the

royal collections (and from which a tapestry was

created).

Tolnay saw this fable as representing the triumph of art over craft. The problem with this view is its

assumption that the goddess's art was superior to the mortal's. This was true of Apollo's music, but,

according to Ovid, Pallas was not more skillful than Arachne. The mortal did not lose the contest; she was

punished for disrespect for the gods.23 By depicting them in unflattering contexts, carousing in unseemly fashion and not even in their normal forms, Arachne

was presenting the truth. The truth she chose to

represent, however, infringed on due respect and contrasted in this way with Pallas's "portrait" of the

gods. Within the composition of Las Meninas the

painting of Pallas and Arachne could be interpreted then in terms of contemporary artistic issues, warning of the dangers of unflattering realism when representing important personages. In contrast to the disrespectful

Arachne at the moment of disgrace, Velazquez stands in the foreground in an honored and trusted position

before his patron. Much rewarded throughout a lifetime of service since the painting contest of 1627, he had

very recently risen to the highest office in the palace. The structure of meaning in the painting corresponds to

the pictorial structure that connects the figures of

Velazquez and Nieto to each other and to the two

paintings above them. In addition, the two men are

linked in a triangular arrangement with the viewer-king

standing before them and reflected in the mirror

between them.

The balance of truth and decorum: Velazquez's technique

How did Velazquez avoid the pitfalls of realistic

portraiture? In his Di?logos Carducho expresses the common concern of the time when he warns that the

copying of a head from nature without improvement can result in infringement on the dignity of the sitter.

Carducho's "learned painter" corrects and emends nature with reason and educated habits of mind

(1633:52r, 54r). That Velazquez was attempting to

Figure 5. Diego Velazquez, Mother Jer?nima de la Fuente

(detail), 1620. Oil on canvas, 160 x 110 cm. Museo del

Prado, Madrid. Photo: Courtesy of Museo del Prado.

strike a balance between truth and the demands of

decorum becomes evident when several precourt

portraits and different versions of early royal portrayals are compared. In his earliest dated portrait, two close

versions of Mother Jer?nima de la Fuente (1620),

Velazquez detailed the lines of age on the face and the

prominent veins on the hands of the sitter (fig. 5).24 This treatment, also evident in the depiction of older

subjects in his precourt religious and genre paintings, was not repeated in later portraits. Already in the Luis

23. Brewer comments that the ending of the Arachne story is

surprising in that Arachne's work was allowed to be good, and Pallas

had to resort to violence (1941, 2:3 and 11). Brown notes the same

(1978:104, note 51).

24. The other version is in the Fern?ndez Araoz Collection, Madrid. These and the portrait of Crist?bal Su?rez de Ribera (Seville, Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes), also of 1620, are Velazquez's earliest dated portraits. The early Man with Ruff Collar, also from

before 1623, probably does not predate this group (Brown

1986:29-34).

106 RES 28 AUTUMN 1995

Figure 6. Diego Velazquez, Luis de G?ngora, 1622. Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm. Marie Antoinette Evans Fund, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photo: Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Umberger: Velazquez and naturalism II 107

de G?ngora of 1622 (fig. 6) there is less emphasis on

lines and more on the reflection of light from the

planes of the face in a less focused treatment

(contrasting with the sharp edges of the collar).

Interesting also is the radiograph of the portrait, which

reveals that at first Velazquez crowned the poet with a

laurel wreath (L?pez-Rey 1968:39, pi. 40).

Subsequently, he painted over the wreath, preferring to

convey the sitter's distinction through his

characterization rather than artifice.

Experimentation with another type of artifice,

idealization, is found in his portrayals of the king. The

radiograph of the full-length standing portrait of Philip of about 1626-28 (Prado) shows a different painting beneath, which is thought to be the first image of the

king created by Velazquez in 1623 (L?pez-Rey 1968:43-44, pi. 49). Brown has argued convincingly that the face of this earlier, hidden image was an

idealized one that Velazquez subsequently covered

with a more realistic visage. The earlier version,

fortunately, is still visible in three other paintings, two

possibly by Velazquez, the third a copy (Brown

1986:44-47). Illustrated here to show the change are

two bust-length portraits. In one, thought by Brown to

be a study on which the hidden full-length portrait was

based, the jaw is shortened and the full lower lip is

minimized (fig. 7). The other, which is very similar to

the repainted image now visible in the full-length

portrait, shows a lengthier jaw and fuller lip (fig. 8).

Clearly Velazquez was trying to create an appropriate

image of the king, but in the end he rejected the

modified features that compromised likeness.

Studying the brushwork of artists like El Greco and

Titian, he continued, however, to explore his new

approach to the painted surface and accompanying ideas about the nature of resemblance. Having started

with a style emphasizing close-up surface detail, by the

1630s Velazquez had developed a variety of strokes to

give the impression of differences in distance, focus,

light, and movement. Most revolutionary among these were the thin washes that created hazy, blurred images without sharp outlines and the loose, separated manchas or borrones (spots, blotches) that produced a

surface in which the "details" are dabs of paint rather

than the incidentals of appearance (see especially McKim-Smith et al. 1988:chap. 1).25 In portraits

Velazquez used the thinner paints and soft focus for the

face?with occasional sharper focus in the eyes or hair

(fig. 9)?and borrones for decorated garments and the

more elaborate hairdos of women. This manner of

painting requires viewing from a distance, as the image makes sense only when the spectator backs away from

the canvas. Gridley McKim-Smith and coauthors have

emphasized that the viewing distance thus established

was a clich? in contemporary literature (1988:15-17). Of Velazquez's painting specifically, Palomino says, "from close up it cannot be understood . . . from a

distance it is a miracle" (1947:905). Another passage in Palomino makes the connection

between this technique of distancing the image from

the viewer and the problem of portraying faults in

realistic portraiture. After advising the artist to good use

of light and portrayal of the subject when he looks his

best, he further suggests in the case of sovereigns,

in the face some things may be moderated which do not favor the subject, like wrinkling, thinness, or bad color . . .

this on the whole cannot prejudice the likeness, because when a subject is viewed at some distance, where only the general pattern (mancha) of light and shadow can be seen and the other little details are lost, it is not due to

[these] that the subject is recognizable. From this it is inferred with certainty that contour and general pattern of

light and shadow are the fundamental principle of the likeness and that the rest are accidents and corroborations

which lend little to the substance of the intent. Palomino 1947530-53126

Earlier Pacheco had made a similar distinction between the accidents of appearance and the essence,

which can be depicted with "simple lines" (1956, 2:212-213). In portraiture, he says, only a bad artist

needs to exaggerate notable defects to make a likeness

recognizable (1956, 2:152). In Darlo todo Apelles expresses the same idea, that it is easier to create a

likeness when the sitter has a defect (Calder?n

1959:1250). In Las Meninas the variety of techniques through

which Velazquez achieved resemblance is evident

25. Notice Calder?n's use in the scene quoted above of the words

mancha and borr?n for the fault on Alexander's face, a purposeful

twist, since these were the terms for the brushstrokes with which

Velazquez obscured such faults.

26. This passage follows Palomino's restatement of the conflict of

truth and decorum in portraiture, where he, like many before him, invokes the example of Apelles. His solution of a path midway

between effrontery and flattery echoes Calder?n, even in the wording: "in this the discretion of the artist has to do much, trying to imitate

what Apelles did in the portrait of King Antigonos . . . placing him

almost in half profile, with which discretion he was freed from

slipping into one of the two dangers of effrontery (atrevido) or of

flattery (lisonjero)" (1947:530).

108 RES 28 AUTUMN 1995

Figure 7. Diego Velazquez, Philip IV, ca. 1623. Oil on canvas, 62 x 48 cm. Algur H. Meadows Collection, Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. Photo: Courtesy of Meadows Museum.

Umberger: Velazquez and naturalism II 109

Figure 8. Diego Velazquez, Philip IV in Armor, ca. 1626. Oil on canvas, 57 x 44 cm. Museo del Prado. Photo: Courtesy of

Museo del Prado.

throughout. His economy of means is demonstrated

particularly in the distant image of Nieto, as Palomino

himself remarked (1947:921), and the mirror reflection

of the king and queen (fig. 10). These visages, although

vague and composed of thin washes, are still

completely recognizable; the patterns of light and

shadow reveal distinctive face shapes. Pacheco,

Palomino, and Calder?n, therefore, must have been

verbalizing Velazquez's revolutionary solutions.

Although Calder?n does not explain Apelles' answer in

the same vein, the casting of a shadow over the fault

would have had the effect of putting it in an area of

reduced focus.

Addressing a king prudently

The linking of Las Meninas to Darlo todo also opens the discussion to a complex of notions about this

aspect of his naturalism. But how are we to understand

the seemingly unflattering psychological reality of

Velazquez's contemporary portraits of the king? Some

of the artistic issues addressed by Calder?n have been

analyzed by the literary historian Robert Ter Horst

(1982a; 1982b), but no one has yet related them to

Velazquez's portrayals. The following by J. H. Elliott

represents current thought on the painter's bust-length

portrait of Philip of about the same date as Las

Meninas (fig. 9):

At first glance it would seem that Velazquez had stripped away all the majesty of kingship to reveal the pathetic

figure behind the mask?a weak, defeated and disillusioned man. But this is to ignore the Spanish tradition of royal portraiture to which Velazquez faithfully adhered. . . . The very austerity and simplicity of the king's ?mage in Spanish painting was itself an indication of his

overwhelming majesty. It may well be that Velazquez, as a

supremely great artist, could not but reveal the human frailties of the king he served.

Elliott 1989:267-268

I do not question the observations about the simplicity of presentation (see also Brown 1988), nor that

Velazquez came close to exposing Philip's inner life. I

do see as off course, however, Elliott's characterization

of the king's state of mind as depicted as something that Velazquez "could not but reveal": Calder?n would

have explained it differently. In Darlo todo the king's outward physical fault is not

just a matter of accident; it reflects (or, more accurately in this case, symbolizes) an inner character flaw, which

he must, and does, conquer by the end of the play (Ter Horst 1982a:182-183). Alexander's flaw is his passion for the beautiful Campaspe, whom he relinquishes

finally to Apelles. The theme here is the necessity for a

king to control his inner self before he can control his

kingdom (Ter Horst 1982a:part 3), and the artist's

function in portraying the king is that of a counselor.

For Calder?n the greatest achievement of painting was

the representation of the soul, in particular, the

suffering soul (Ter Horst 1982b). Through the revealing

portrait the artist "speaks" to and "advises" the subject,

pointing out essential problems, but not in an insulting or blunt manner.

Philip's sins were his pursuit of pleasure, and, like

Alexander, the sexual promiscuity of his young adulthood suring the 1620s and 1630s. In keeping with

current thought he viewed the political disasters of his

later reign and the losses to death of his first wife, two

siblings, and heir Baltasar Carlos in the 1640s as God's

punishment for these sins (Elliott 1977:47; Greer

1991:89-90; Seco Serrano 1958, 4:lx-lxiii, 13, 19-20,

110 RES 28 AUTUMN 1995

Figure 9. Diego Velazquez, Philip IV, before 1655. Oil on canvas, 62 x 48 cm. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Photo:

Courtesy of Museo del Prado.

Umberger: Velazquez and naturalism II 111

64, 81, 84, 85). Velazquez's late portrayal of Philip then must be considered as the artist's prudent revelation of the soul. It is a portrait of a man whose

contrition, suffering, and struggle with his inner self

have marked his exterior appearance. It is consistent

with the mental state apparent in Philip's

correpondence with his spiritual advisor, Sor Mar?a de

Agreda (Seco Serrano 1958) and it represents the kingly virtue of self-conquest, or at least the struggle for

self-control.

Velazquez's physically and psychologically realistic

portrayals were not a matter of an individual artistic

agenda. They were the visual manifestations of

contemporary currents of thought shared by the king and explicated philosophically by Calder?n. Philip must have approved of the artist's early rejection of an

idealized image, and, as Brown points out, later he

ordered paintings of himself and others in the palace to

be inspected and repainted, if necessary, with more like

visages. As time passed, he did not expect the artist to

ameliorate the effects of age but rather eschewed

representation (Brown 1988:147-148). As for the verbal

revelation of faults, there is some evidence in his

correspondence that Philip wanted his ministers to

speak directly to him, even when they were critical; at

least he echoed this commonly voiced ?deal of Spanish

political thought.27 The trope of the king who must rule his passions is

found in other plays by Calder?n and his Spanish

predecessors (Ter Horst 1982a:173ff.). It is inherent in

Pliny's original story in which Alexander's gift of his

mistress to the artist is interpreted as a demonstration of

self-conquest comparable to a victory in battle

(1968:125). Nevertheless, the fact that the king's character flaw in Darlo todo is uncontrolled passion would not have been interpreted as a matter of

generalized allegory by its palace audience. Philip himself had to have taken the lesson personally when

his particular weakness was presented in a play that, in

other ways, referred more specifically to his court.

Margaret Rich Greer characterizes the nature of such

references and their comprehensibility to the audience:

[Calder?n's late plays] do not offer simplistic allegory in which a mythic figure personifies a single vice or virtue

Figure 10. Close-up of mirror reflections of Philip IV and

Mariana in Las Meninas. Photo: Courtesy of Museo del Prado.

and points at a particular figure in the court. Rather ... he

constructs actions that have a general fidelity to human nature and inserts clues that would tactfully steer a court

audience towards certain political readings.

Greer 1991:102

Presumably Calder?n was addressing Philip with the

proper subtlety required in all his counselors; at least, that is what he avows in the play itself. The contest

scene is like a painting-within-a-painting in that Apelles offers to Alexander (with trepidation) a painted message about the same problem that Calder?n is presenting to

Philip in a verbal portrait of kingship. In the end,

nevertheless, Darlo todo can be seen as flattering and

encouraging to Philip in its depiction of Alexander as a

king who was a perceptive judge of art, wanted truth

from his counselors, conquered his human faults (that

is, his passion), and became a great ruler. The latter, of

course, was Philip's desired goal, although by this date

its attainment was seemingly beyond hope. Performed

27. See two letters of 1626 between Philip and his minister, the

Count-Duke of Olivares, as quoted in Saxl (1957:312-313; also Greer

1991:79), and also his correspondence with Sor Mar?a de Agreda

(Seco Serrano 1958). The offering of such criticism was seen as

desirable and even a matter of loyalty, but it was also a very delicate

affair (Greer 1991:79-82).

112 RES 28 AUTUMN 1995

perhaps twice on occasions celebrating Queen Mariana

(Reichenberger 1979:203), Darlo todo, like Velazquez's

portrait, probably constituted more an acknowledgment of Philip's contrition and new self-control after his

remarriage in 1649 than an admonition. Presumably by this date, he was no longer indulging in extramarital

liaisons. As for Mariana's perception of the play, she

could have taken comfort in the final scene wherein

Alexander gives up Campaspe and takes a royal bride, the beautiful captive princess, Estatira?his fianc?,

Queen Rojana of Cyprus, having died at sea during the

action of the play. Estatira and Rojana could have

represented, respectively, Mariana and Isabel of

Bourbon, her defunct predecessor as Queen of Spain. If we accept Darlo todo as containing a veiled

reference to Philip's sexual incontinence, we must

acknowledge allusions to the same, but with much

greater subtlety, in the imagery of Las Meninas,

specifically in the mythological painting above

Velazquez's head. Greer has argued convincingly that

in Las fortunas de Andr?meda y Perseo (1653) Calder?n was referring to Philip and his illegitimate son

Don Juan Jos? de Austria (1629-1679) through the

persons of Jupiter and Perseus, his illicit son by Dan?e

(1991:96-101). In the Rubens composition Arachne's

tapestry depicts another incident in which Jupiter strays from his proper mate, Juno, and seduces a mortal

woman, Europa. In contrast Velazquez's invisible

canvas, revealed by the mirror as constituting yet another painting-within-a-painting, depicts Philip, the

Spanish Jupiter, as a faithful husband with his queen.28

Previously, the question asked was whether such a

double portrait ever existed (for example, Moffitt

1980:286-287). The question posed here is why

Velazquez is representing the painting of such a

portrait. Like van Eyck in the Arnolfini Portrait, that

other remarkable composition that influenced

Velazquez in the use of the mirror (fig. 11), the artist

appears to witness the union of Philip and Mariana, but

in a reversed composition, with himself inside and the

couple outside the painting (Seidel 1993:194-198).

And, like Apelles in Darlo todo, he is creating a

visually truthful, yet respectful, portrait of the king.

The suggestion of a purposeful juxtaposition of the

double portrait with the tapestry helps explain Mariana's presence beside the king as well as that of

Margarita, the focal point of the foreground group.29

Margarita was Philip and Mariana's only living child in

1656 and proof of their union. The focus on their

legitimate royal offspring within a room that was still

associated with the dead heir to the throne (Palomino

1947:921) had to have had additional resonances for

members of the court at a time when Don Juan, the

illegitimate son recognized by the king in 1642, was

rising to political power (see Orso 1989:77ff., on the

dilemma of royal succession in these years). Don Juan was the source of much pain to Mariana?as he had

been to Isabel of Bourbon?and as an adult in the

1650s he was a challenger to the rights of Philip's

younger, female, and less able legitimate children (in addition to Margarita, his daughter Maria Teresa

survived from his first marriage). Later, he remained a

threat to the government of the mentally retarded

Charles II, who, born in 1661, came to the throne in

1665 under the regency of Mariana. Calder?n

continued to comment through mythological allegory on Don Juan's political presence vis-?-vis Philip,

Charles, and Mariana (Greer 1991 :chaps. 4 and 5, and

elsewhere). Who among the first viewers of Las Meninas might

have recognized these implications, or read them into

its imagery? Although the obscurity of the paintings makes the meaning?even the intention of meaning? difficult to detect, some inhabitants of the palace would have known which canvases hanging on the

wall were depicted in Las Meninas (and they would

have had to know the originals to see meaning in them as the details are not legible). For the less acute

observer, they might have represented simply the

punishments of the disrespectful artist and the poor

judge of art. Yet others might have understood the

tapestry in the Arachne painting as a reference to

Philip's sins. Calder?n, of course, would have seen

both personal and artistic implications. In addition to

the congruence of his and Velazquez's theoretical ideas

and the reference to an incident from the painter's life

in Darlo todo, Calder?n used a painting-within-a-play in El pintor de su deshonra (The painter of his

dishonor; 1640s), in which the artist-protagonist 28. Given the seventeenth-century link between the moral and the

political, a further level of meaning is possible here, with Europa

representing the territory over which Spain for many years had

attempted to extend domain to the neglect of the domestic scene

(and, of course, with diminishing success in Philip's time). Europa

riding the bull represents Europe in an allegorical portrait of Philip IV

engraved at the time of his death (Orso 1989:115, pi. 9).

29. See also Volk (1978) and Vahlne (1982) for interpretations of

the painting emphasizing the presence of the Queen and members of

her household.

Umberger: Velazquez and naturalism II 113

Figure 11. Jan van Eyck, Arnolfini Portrait, 1434. Oil on panel, 81.8 x 59.7 cm. The National Gallery, London. Photo: Courtesy of the Trustees, The National Gallery, London.

114 RES 28 AUTUMN 1995

pictured events from Hercules' life paralleling the plot of the play and foretelling his own death (Calder?n

1991:173-175). I have argued above for the meaningful presence of

a series of paintings-within-the-painting in the

composition of Las Meninas: the two mythological

pictures, the Arachne tapestry in one of these, the

mirror, and the invisible canvas that it reveals. I now

suggest the artist's use of another artifice as a verbal

key to the meaning of his composition?an emblem in

the form of the dog, who lies in the foreground even

closer to the viewer than Margarita (and perhaps

adopted also from van Eyck's painting). As in the

theater where such animal emblems were displayed on

the proscenium and curtains (Greer 1991:86, 158-159), the dog marks the entrance to Velazquez's "stage." If

his presence, like the dog in the Arnolfini Portrait, was

meant to evoke the word fidelity?more explicitly in

this context, the concept of faithful painting?it would

encapsulate several meanings of the word and the

suggested messages of the imagery in a play.30 Two

decades earlier Carducho had called naturalistic

painting 'fiel imitadora . . . de lo natural"(the faithful

imitator of nature) (1633:56r), without meaning to

flatter its practitioners. Velazquez turns the value of this

concept around and depicts his own version of "faithful

painting" as resolving the dilemma of the naturalistic

artist: like the mirror, it is faithful to the truth, and, unlike Arachne's tapestry, it is faithful to the depicted

patron. Velazquez's portrayals, although realistic

instruments of self-knowledge,31 were not blunt or

insulting: his characterizations have dignity, his

brushstrokes minimize physical faults, and he includes

the trappings appropriate to Habsburg rulership (see Brown 1988). Fidelity, of course, would also define

Philip's faithfulness to his wife and his friendship for

and support of his pintor de c?mara.

Such verbal plays were characteristic not only of the

contemporary poetry and dramas of writers like

G?ngora and Calder?n but also of Velazquez's conversation (Umberger 1993:25). I have proposed a

similar visual witticism in the figure of Bacchus in Los

Borrachos, wherein the naturalistic model in a

Michelangelesque pose should have called to the

minds of the palace artists who were its first audience

the words on "Michelangelo" and "Anti-Michelangelo," the latter being the epithet used by Carducho for the

hated Michelangelo da Caravaggio (Umberger 1993:27, 31-35). In the case of Las Meninas we must decide

whether we can accept the use of an emblem in our

conception of Velazquez's naturalism. I believe that we

can. Although Velazquez effaced the obvious artifices

in his early portraits, more natural appearing devices, even emblems, are not totally lacking in other

paintings. He included an allegorical figure in the form

of a sculpture in his first important historical

composition, the Expulsion of the Moriscos (1627,

destroyed in 1734; Palomino 1947:898-899), and a

reclining lion in the background of a late portrait of

Philip (Brown, 1986:fig. 269).32

Provisional conclusions

Svetlana Alpers sees Las Meninas as, on some level,

expressing through its composition contemporary structures of thought.33 She characterizes the painting as conflating two modes of viewing, which she calls

southern (Italian or Albertian) and northern

(Netherlandish or descriptive). I believe that the general notion is correct but would be more accurate reframed

in the terms of contemporary, Italian-derived Spanish theoretical discourse.34 What Alpers calls southern and

northern modes are both found in Spanish thought, subsumed, respectively, within the contrasting concepts of dibujo (drawing) and colorido (coloring), disegno and colore in Italian (see Carducho 1633:passim;

McKim-Smith et al. 1988:15-33). Dibujo was

associated with a variety of linked ideas: perspective,

learning, science, drawing, constructed compositions,

30. In van Eyck's painting the dog represents marital fidelity

(Panofsky 1971; Seidel 1993:124). Pacheco repeated Karel van

Mander's description of the portrait, which states that the couple is

joined by faith (1956, 1:64). He does not connect this with the

painting then in the royal collections, but Velazquez would have.

Velazquez did not, however, need a description to see the symbolic function of the dog.

31. The characterization of paintings as like mirrors/realtiy was rife

in the seventeenth century. See, for instance, a poem by Quevedo of

about 1629 (Varia velazque?a 1960, 2:19-22); or Valdivielso's poem

about his portrait by Juan van der Hamen y Le?n (in Carducho

1633:183r). The idea of mirrors as "instruments of self-knowledge" is

found in Calder?n; they cure bestiality and help characters regain human form (Greer 1991:92). See also Emmens's interesting discussion of the mirror in Las Meninas in relation to the concept of

the "mirror of princes" (1961:60ff.); and Kahr (1975:243).

32. The latter is actually a workshop product, but presumably was

based on Velazquez's conception. 33. In this she follows Foucault (1973:3-16, 307-308, 312),

although she differs in the structures she believes it reflects.

34. I disagree, however, with Alpers's corollary idea that the

artist's place in this scheme is both inside and outside the painting.

Umberger: Velazquez and naturalism II 115

study of visual precedents, use of literary figures and

emblems, the idea, the ideal, the intellectual, and, in

Carducho's treatise, the pintor interior, as represented

by Michelangelo. It thus comprised the learned

techniques by which the artist created appropriate and

decorous images in portraiture. Colorido encompassed

surface, color, decoration, brushstroke, imitation, truth,

fidelity, nature, the natural, and Carducho's pintor exterior, as represented by Caravaggio. It therefore

comprised the naturalistic aspects that might infringe on decorum. In addition to alluding to the solution to

the specific problems of portraiture in the mirror image and the Arachne painting in Las Meninas, Velazquez resolved the conflicts between these two modes in his

general composition and manner of painting: in other

words, his is both naturalistic painting (fiel) and

learned painting (docta). This resolution through conflation also translates into

the terms of seventeenth-century categories of painting. A monumental composition, Las Meninas depicts a

casual but highly calculated arrangement of real

people, and thereby raises (naturalistic) portraiture and

genre painting to the level of (learned) history

painting.35 Naturalistic portraiture and genre painting, the categories in which the young Velazquez had

excelled, were denigrated by Carducho and the other

Italianate artists who dominated the court when he

arrived in 1623.

Although long dead by 1656, the theories and

concerns of these men, as well as their hostility, made a lasting impression on Velazquez and provided the

impetus for his own theoretical thought. If Los

Borrachos was a humorous reaction to their rigid and

doctrinaire views painted soon after the contest of

1627, Las Meninas is a more distant and serious

response.

The issue of the status of painters that other scholars

emphasize in their readings of Las Meninas was very real in the mid-seventeenth century: arguments in favor

of painting as a liberal art form the basic structure and

primary function of many of the theoretical treatises of

the time (see Volk 1978). This must have been an

important issue for Velazquez too, and in every respect Las Meninas supports the highest claims for the art of

painting, as was recognized in its time (Palomino

1947:922). The issue of liberal arts status, however, is

not referred to in the composition's allegorical

allusions; nor is Velazquez's specific ambition for

knighthood. Addressed instead are the problems of

naturalistic representation and the role of the learned

artist. Having a strong base in contemporary literature, this alternate interpretation has the advantage of

relating closely to Velazquez's own great painterly

innovations, as demonstrated fully in Las Meninas

itself. It also does more justice to Velazquez's intellect,

and, at the same time, sees him as a man of his era, whose commitment to realistic portrayal and a related

body of philosophical ideas was comprehensible to his

contemporaries and shared by the equally brilliant

playwright Pedro Calder?n de la Barca, as well as, to a

certain extent, the king himself.

35. See Moffitt on how Las Meninas fulfills Alberti's prescriptions for history painting (1980:290-293).

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