Diego Velázquez notable work Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan
Italian period
In 1629, Velázquez was given permission to spend a year and a half in Italy. Though this first visit is recognized as a crucial chapter in the development of his style—and in the history of Spanish Royal Patronage, since Philip IV sponsored his trip—few details and specifics are known of what the painter saw, whom he met, how he was perceived and what innovations he hoped to introduce into his painting.
He traveled to Venice, Ferrara, Cento, Loreto, Bologna, and Rome. In 1630, he visited Naples to paint the portrait of Maria Anna of Spain, and there he probably met Ribera. The major works from his first Italian period are Joseph's Bloody Coat brought to Jacob (1629–30) and Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan (1630), both of which reveal his ambition to rival the Italians as a history painter in the grand manner. The two compositions of several nearly life-sized figures have similar dimensions, and may have been conceived as pendants—the biblical scene depicting a deception, and the mythological scene depicting the revelation of a deception. As he had done in The Triumph of Bacchus, Velázquez presented his characters as contemporary people whose gestures and facial expressions were those of everyday life. Following the example of Bolognese painters such as Guido Reni, Velázquez painted Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan on canvas prepared with a light gray ground rather than the dark reddish ground of all his earlier works. The change resulted in a greater luminosity than he had previously achieved, and he made the use of light-gray grounds his regular practice.
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