The Toilet of Venus | artble.com The Toilet of Venus The Rokeby Venus, Venus at her toilet Height (cm): The Toilet of Venus Story / Theme The Toilet of Venus Diego Velazquez Gaspar Méndez de Haro y Guzman One of Velázquez's most famous and admired paintings, The Toilet of Venus (also known as The Rokeby Venus, Venus at her toilet, or Venus del espejo) depicts the Goddess of Love admiring herself in her bedchamber with the help of her son Cupid, who props up a mirror for her divine contemplation. Although this particular scene does not have its roots in a particular source (literary or otherwise), the subject was common in Italian painting and antiquity. Venus seen from behind was a common erotic figure in antiquity. The circumstances surrounding the commission of The Toilet of Venus are shrouded in mystery. This is the only surviving nude by Velázquez and nudity in painting was conceived of as a mortal sin punishable by law during the Spanish Baroque, unlike in France, Italy, or Flanders, where nude and provocatively posed ladies abounded.

The patron of this work would thus have been loathe to leave any records proving his commission or purchase of such a piece. Based on stylistic criteria, however, art historians have tentatively dated the picture to the time of Velázquez's second trip to Italy. Today it has been established that by the 1st of June, 1651, the painting was in the collection of Gaspar Méndez de Haro y Guzman, who was the Marqués del Carpo and grand-nephew of the Count Duke Olivares, Velázquez's first important patron. Guzman was a notorious womanizer and lover of pictures, and The Toilet of Venus hung next to a similarly risqué Italian picture of a nude nymph in a landscape. Given this evidence, it has long been assumed that Guzman commissioned the picture, but recent research has revealed that in fact Guzman purchased the picture from a third party. For whom, then, was the picture actually painted? The world of art may never know.

The Toilet of Venus Inspirations for the Work Peter Paul Rubens The Borghese Hermaphrodite Although female nudes were of the utmost scarcity in Spanish art, Velázquez would have encountered many examples of this same subject both in Philip IV's collection of Italian paintings, and during both of his trips to Italy. The following artists and paintings could very well have provided both stylistic and compositional inspiration for the Spanish artist; Giorgione, Sleeping Venus , c. 1510: This archetype of the female nude was executed by Venetian painter Giorgione, a star of the Italian Renaissance. While a painting with such overtly sensuous implications would hardly have been acceptable in Baroque Spain, a painting such as this would surely have been an important source of inspiration for Velázquez's own rendering of a reclining female nude. Titian, Venus with a Mirror. c. 1555: Titian was the supreme influence on Velázquez, who undoubtedly admired the Italian artist's numerous depictions of the female nude.

Titian's rendering of this theme is more traditional than that of the Spaniard: this voluptuous Venus is shown as a blonde, in keeping with traditional depictions of the goddess, with her traditional mythological accoutrements (jewels, etc. ), and wrapped in sensual furs. Rubens, Venus at the Mirror . c. 1615: Rubens' rendition of this popular theme is perhaps the closest to Velázquez's The Toilet of Venus. Like in the Velázquez, this buxom blonde goddess is shown from the back and she ogles the viewer from her vanity mirror as the onlooker takes in her sumptuous curves. Rubens 's painting is filled with the sweeping energy and dynamism that defines Baroque art, which has a kindred spirit in Velázquez's sweeping curves and counter-curves. The Borghese Hermaphrodite: Velázquez ordered a bronze cast of this surprising masterpiece of Hellenistic art during his second trip to Italy. The pose and figure of this reclining nude was undeniably a source of inspiration for Velázquez's Venus.

The Toilet of Venus Analysis The Toilet of Venus The Toilet of Venus Diego Velazquez In keeping with the innovation that marks the rest of his oeuvre, Velázquez's painting is a major departure from all precedent interpretations of Venus at her toilet. Composition: The Toilet of Venus is based on the form of the curve: the smooth, Venus's gentle curves are echoed in the swooping draperies, the billowing ribbon and the protruding belly of the Cupid. As one art historian has pointed out, Velázquez's slender, lithe figure, with her jutting hip and shoulder bones, is worlds apart from the sumptuous, voluptuous specimens of the Italian and Flemish paintings. Velázquez's Venus is not an idealized goddess of sensual delights, but instead a rather ordinary, all-too-human girl from Spain. She even has brown hair, a major departure from the traditional blonde Venus. Furthermore, this Venus is depicted with the utmost simplicity, with none of the jewels, exotic furs, or sensual oils that usually accompany the goddess.

In fact, The Toilet of Venus could very easily be a portrait of any anonymous Spanish woman, were it not for the presence of the winged Cupid, the only element that lifts this painting out of the human realm. The ribbon: The signification of the ribbon is one of the most often discussed elements of the painting. What is its purpose? Is it mere decoration? Was it used to hang the mirror upon the wall? To blindfold the Venus? Or, as art critic Julián Gallego suggests, could it be that the ribbon binds poor Cupid to Venus and the image of beauty? Art historians have yet to definitively answer the question, and the ribbon rests yet another enigma in Velázquez's often puzzling oeuvre. The mirror: Just like in Las Meninas, the mirror is a somewhat enigmatic focal point in The Toilet of Venus. Like in Rubens's Venus at her Mirror, The Toilet of Venus is actually gazing at the viewer as she offers him (or her) a rather intimate view of her anatomy. Her reflection in the mirror, however, is strangely blurred and fuzzy-but why? Art critic Natasha Wallace suggests that this blurred reflection could reveal the very meaning of the painting.

According to Wallace, the mirrored reflection is "an image of self-absorbed beauty. " For Wallace, therefore, The Toilet of Venus is thus a picture purely about appreciating beauty and "aesthetic sexuality. " While this could indeed be one layer of signification, the mirror is a symbol overcharged with meaning, which refers to fundamental questions about the relationship between art and reality. Color palette: Velázquez's painting is based on a simple palette scheme dominated by red, blue and white. All of these colors are reflected in the skin of the Cupid and Venus, carefully blended with smooth, creamy, free brushstrokes. The Toilet of Venus Critical Reception A mysterious model Who is The Toilet of Venus? Some have suggested that the model for the Venus also appears in Las Hilanderas. Others have even proposed that the model could be Velázquez's Italian mistress, with whom he had a child during his second trip to Italy. Due to the fact that The Toilet of Venus was kept under wraps until 1857, its influence on the art world was somewhat delayed.

It was not until 1857 that artists could fully appreciate Velázquez's deviance from classical depictions of intimacy and sleep, typically seen in works from antiquity and Venetian art portraying Venus. Velázquez's simple image of the female nude-without jewelery or accessories-inspired many later nude studies by Manet and Ingres among others. Furthermore, Velázquez's choice of depicting Venus from the rear was novel and has since been copied by later artists. A notable example is Manet's Olympia (See Related Paintings) which initially shocked the Parisian art world upon its exhibition in 1863. The Toilet of Venus Related Paintings The Nude Maja The Toilet of Venus has proven to be one of Velázquez's most influential works and continues to inspire artists even to this day. The following paintings are some of the most notable examples of The Toilet of Venus's incredible legacy. Francisco Goya, La Maja Desnuda, 1800: This striking Spanish father of Romanticism caused quite a stir with his famous painting, La Maja desnuda (The Nude Maja).

In a conservative Spain still under the grips of Inquisition, this utterly frank depiction of female nudity, with its unusual depiction of female pubic hair and the sitter's frank engagement with the viewer was so shocking as to have the Inquisition divest Goya of his title as Royal Court Painter in 1815. Goya's Maja would become influential in its own right, but the artist owes an undeniable debt to Velázquez's The Toilet of Venus, the most famous and masterful example of a reclining female nude in Spanish art. Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863: Manet's equally controversial painting continues in the same lineage as Goya and Velázquez. Manet was an enthusiastic admirer of Velázquez, calling him "the painter's painter," and his Olympia is in debt to The Toilet of Venus, if only through Goya's example. Just like Velázquez , Manet portrays a subject with a name that suggests divinity, but the woman herself is utterly human.

The Toilet of Venus Locations Through Time - Notable Sales Rokeby Park National Gallery London London The first recording of The Toilet of Venus was in June 1651 when it was part of the collection of the Marqués del Carpio, son of the First Minister of Spain. Due to the controversial nature of the subject, Velázquez's The Toilet of Venus was kept more or less hidden in private rooms while it remained in Spain. John Morritt, an English lord, acquired the painting in 1813 for a mere 500 pounds and brought it to England (interestingly, he bought it under the advice of his notorious literary friend, Sir Thomas Lawrence). Morritt kept the painting at Rokeby Park in Yorkshire (then known as Rokeby Hall). Even after it was bought by and taken to the United Kingdom, the picture was kept in private apartments and hung in such a way as to avoid offending delicate sensibilities. The painting thus was not available to the public until 1857, when it was shown in at the Manchester Art Treasures exhibit. The Toilet of Venus went on permanent public display in 1906, when it was acquired by the National Gallery in London.

Although this work was attacked and badly damaged in 1914 by the suffragette Mary Richardson, it was fully restored and remained on display. Huge public support called for the acquisition of the painting, and King Edward VII even contributed financially, to prevent it from being removed from the country by "wealthy Americans" who were interested in purchasing the work. The Toilet of Venus Artist Diego Velázquez Édouard Manet Paris The Toilet of Venus is a rare example of a female nude in Spanish art; three other nudes have been recorded by Velázquez, but they are now lost. Paintings of nudity were seen as immoral, and the Inquisition would commonly seize and destroy or repaint such subjects, while the artists who executed them could be excommunicated and banished from Spain. In fact, the poet and priest Fray Hortensio Félix suggested that "the finest paintings are the greatest threat: burn the best of them. " Nonetheless, important nobles and even the King himself managed to get around these rules by keeping their naughty pictures in hidden rooms, away from the public eye.

Velázquez's mythological paintings such as The Toilet of Venus are some of the most exquisite in the history of art and are characterized by; Careful realism; even mythological figures are portrayed as real people Typically, a lighter, brighter palette than the bodegones, portraits or religious works Velázquez has not ceased to be a remarkably fecund source of inspiration for art critics and art historians up until the present day, nor has his reputation as one of the greatest painters of all time been dimmed. Velázquez paved the way for early nineteenth century realist and impressionist painters, especially Édouard Manet . Since then, he has gone on to influence artists as diverse as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, and Anglo-Irish painter Francis Bacon. Such artists have demonstrated their love for the works of Velázquez by recreating some of his most noted paintings. Diego Velázquez was hailed a father of the Spanish school of art and is one of the greatest artists that ever lived.

The Toilet of Venus Art Period Baroque Male Nude Seen from Behind Annibale Carracci Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez was born into a society of paradox: Spain was simultaneously undergoing one of the most dramatic economic and political declines of any nation in European history, and unprecedentedly fertile, creative bursts of artistic activity. In Velázquez's hometown of Seville in particular, circles of Humanist learning, arts and letters and philosophy all flourished, constituting a particularly fecund environment for a young artist. On the other hand, Velázquez's chosen profession would become a significant obstacle in the artist's personal agenda. Spanish society was obsessed with nobility, and unlike in Italy, the visual arts were emphatically not equated with noble pursuits like literature or philosophy. Artists were seen as essentially vulgar craftsman who worked for a living with their hands, just like blacksmiths or tailors. Making matters even more complicated, the Catholic church exercised almost total power over the arts in Spain, dictating everything from subject to composition, meaning that artists had very little room to experiment or grow. Velázquez was thus fated to struggle from the very incipience of his career.

While most artists of the Baroque period suffered from a serious drop in critical opinion during the 18th century, eventually fading into oblivion until being rediscovered in the 1950s, Velázquez took an alternate route. Because of Spain's political situation, the nation was more or less isolated from the rest of Europe during the heights of Neoclassicism, meaning that Velázquez's reputation was safe from the hands of Baroque-haters like Wincklemann, who managed to destroy the reputation of such artists as Caravaggio , Carracci and Bernini . By the time Spain opened up to the rest of Europe in the beginning of the 19th century, the world was ready for Velázquez, and critics and artists alike haven't ceased singing the master painter's praises. The Toilet of Venus Bibliography The following list offers some of the best sources of further reading on Velázquez and his works. • Brown, Dale. The World of Velázquez: 1599-1660. Time-Life Books, 1969 • Brown, Jonathan. Velázquez, Painter and Courtier.

Yale University Press, 1986 • Carr, Dawson, et al. Velázquez. Yale University Press, 2006 • Davies, David, et al. Velázquez in Seville. National Galleries of Scotland, 1996 • Harris, Enriqueta. Velázquez. Phaidon, 1982 • Kahr, Madlyn Millner. Velázquez: the art of painting. Harper and Row, 1976 • López-Rey, José. Velázquez: A catalogue raisonné of his œuvre. Faber and Faber, 1963 • Pérez Sánchez, Alfonso, et al. Velázquez. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989 • Wolf, Norbert. Diego Velázquez, 1599-1660: the face of Spain. Taschen, 1998 • Wind, Barry. Velázquez's Bodegones: A study in 17th century Spanish genre painting. Fairfax: George Mason University Press, 1987 Want a Printed Canvas or Replica?

Velázquez - Art - Review - The New York Times The New York Times Art & Design |Velázquez, Without Bells or Whistles Search Continue reading the main story Correction Appended LONDON — She reclines on her side, naked, back turned, glancing into a mirror. Pearly flesh sinks luxuriantly into a gray satin bedsheet; it had been a deep mauve, before the color faded, which accounts for the pinkish reflections still cast on her inner thigh, ankle and buttock. Her expression is ambiguous, the features half cast in shadow, catching our eye but blurred by a dim light, by the old mirror and by all the soft, veiled edges in the picture. It’s the stripper principle: show less, leave more to the imagination. There isn’t a sexier image in art. Perfect beauty, Velázquez implies, eludes strict definition. The “Rokeby Venus,” as it is called, has been joined at the National Gallery here by 45 other paintings — nearly half his work — for what is being advertised as the first major Velázquez retrospective in Britain. Who cares? Velázquez is the last artist to need hype.

The Metropolitan Museum’s Velázquez show some years ago, like this one, was said to be the best that could be managed, absent works like “Las Meninas” and “The Spinners,” which don’t travel from Madrid. Youthful struggles with perspective and a few stilted, sullen portraits from the artist’s middle years pad an affair here that, at its worst, comforts us in the knowledge that even Velázquez had his bad days. Photo The Rokeby Venus (1647-51) is one of 46 paintings by Velázquez, almost half his total output, currently on view at the National Gallery in London. Credit The National Gallery, London There are a dozen or more masterpieces on a par with the “Venus” — head-shaking, stupefying paintings in that cool, effortless, ruthless way that Velázquez is great.

I’m thinking of the portrait of the Infante Felipe Próspero, stuffed into a pinafore and a dress with bells; of the Infanta Margarita, an even more divine child; “Aesop,” baggy-eyed, a sage; and the “Riding School.” Like Zorro, with a few flicks of the brush Velázquez materializes perfect little portraits of the king and queen on a distant balcony. The writer Ortega y Gasset got it right. Velázquez’s work, he said, “isn’t art; it is life perpetuated.” Continue reading the main story If these pictures don’t enthrall you, and make you weigh a trans-Atlantic lark, then no art will. The other day I scoured part of the show with David Hockney, who ventured that Velázquez must have used optical aids like a camera obscura. I nodded and smiled. Looking at Velázquez, lesser artists (which means everyone else, no offense to Mr. Hockney) may naturally want to ascribe the vast gulf between them and him to smoke and mirrors.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story There is, in fact, something almost paranormal and unnerving about how his art implicates us, the way Venus does, with her eyes half-meeting ours as if in the very instant that we notice her. She seems suddenly to come alive. This has to do with Velázquez’s uncanny grasp of not just what we see but how we see. A full-length portrait of Philip IV, pale, impassive and luminous, minus the notorious Hapsburg jaw and homely features, wraps the king in a sleeveless jacket and knee-length breeches embroidered in silver. It’s not the greatest portrait. But notice how the silver makes floral patterns glint against plush, purplish velvet. From a few feet away, the effect bedazzles. Then, close up, the patterns dissolve into seemingly random slashes, dots and swirls. They make an abstraction of swift, loose paint whose eloquence can’t be held in the mind’s eye simultaneously with the floral decoration. Step up, step back. The illusion comes and goes. An assistant in Velázquez’s studio painted a similar silvered fabric in a different portrait.

The show’s catalog reproduces an enlarged detail of that picture; its dogged precision results not in sharper focus but in crushing boredom. Somehow Velázquez decoded the mystery of how forms coalesce at a distance, then register in our consciousness as pure brushwork when seen nearer in. Photo Portrait of a prince: Velázquezs Baltasar Carlos on Horseback (1634-35). Credit Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid The brushwork is never virtuosic for virtuosity’s sake, by the way. It’s never superfluous, always economical, in service to lucid description, releasing endorphins by reiterating the basic conjuring trick of painting. You might even say that Modern art, fixated on abstraction and issues of perception, largely rests on this single aspect of Velázquez’s achievement. The retrospective is without bells or whistles. Pictures are accompanied only by title and date. A palm-sized pamphlet, handed to visitors, contains descriptions of each painting, letting people read what and where they choose. No scrums of craning necks grappling before distracting wall texts. The idea should be universally copied.

And there’s natural light: in lieu of the cramped basement in the modern Sainsbury Wing, built for special exhibitions, the show partly displaces the National Gallery’s permanent collection by taking over a suite of handsome, skylighted rooms in the old building. Velázquez painted in natural light. His art hums in it. The gallery will have a hard time justifying Sainsbury for another large old master painting exhibition after this. The show tracks the arc from Seville, where Diego Rodriguez de Silva Velázquez was born in 1599 and apprenticed with the painter Francisco Pacheco. Clearly prodigious, he soon moved to Philip’s court in Madrid, where Rubens recommended a trip to Italy in 1629, for an immersion in Titian and Veronese, the turning point in Velázquez’s life. As a tyro he was desperate to impress, jury-rigging spatial and lighting effects before mastering a mood that was at once urbane and insolent. Wooden figures gave way to increasingly grave and human ones, like the old woman cooking eggs.

Glorying in the bravado of depicting egg whites poaching in boiled water and sunshine glinting differently off ceramic bowl, pestle, mortar and flesh, this picture rises above its self-satisfaction by virtue of the woman’s expression, somber and sacramental. As completely as any painter, Velázquez captured body language: how people point, tilt their heads, signal emotion — and he learned how to convey these signals minimally, coolly, without affectation. Every fool and beggar suddenly becomes a king in his art. Photo A grave and human figure: Velázquezs Old Woman Cooking Eggs (1618). Credit The National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh Cool, effortless and ruthless. You see it in the bandy-legged dwarf Francisco Lezcano, playmate to the child prince Baltasar Carlos. Sprawled, at what looks like the mouth of a cave, before a sunny landscape, Lezcano stares down at us, mouth slack, his face unfocused. (Velázquez manages this effect by painting one side of the face nearly asleep, the other alert.) Shuffling a pack of cards, Lezcano is thuggish, watchful. He’s clearly nobody’s fool.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story In “Mars,” a black comedy, the god of war, middle-aged and stringy, in a loincloth, slumps, with head on fist. Wearing a handlebar mustache and a helmet that’s way too big, he’s a ’70s porn star on a break between scenes. As Ortega y Gasset said, it’s life perpetuated — but truth to life is not the same as reality. About “Venus,” the painter Lucian Freud once pointed out how, anatomically speaking, her crooked right arm makes no sense, her torso stretches like Silly Putty, and her reflection is out of proportion in the mirror. “It’s completely wrong, it bypasses reason, yet it works as art,” he said, iterating a basic tenet of illusion. Painterly artifice, he added, depends on “an artist’s ability to convey feelings that aren’t necessarily ones the artist has himself; otherwise, the most remarkable artists would also be the most virtuous and extraordinary people.” Sadly, true.

We know that Velázquez endlessly maneuvered for status, emulating Rubens’s social stardom by painting less and less, and instead cultivated his roles as royal decorator, housekeeper, curator and courtier. As such, he died a great success, in 1660, the king having visited at his bedside. Genius and humanity in art, Velázquez reminds us, may have nothing necessarily to do with elevated character, which I suppose might be some consolation at a time when the art world is so drunk with money and shallow values. If only somebody today painted half as magnificently as Velázquez. “Velázquez” continues through Jan. 21 at the National Gallery in London; nationalgallery.org.uk. Correction: Nov. 11, 2006 A picture caption with the continuation of an art review in Weekend yesterday about “Velázquez,” at the National Gallery in London, was omitted and a photograph carried an erroneous caption in some copies.

The painting at the upper right of a boy on a horse was “Baltasar Carlos on Horseback” (1634-35), not “Old Woman Cooking Eggs” (1618); the painting at the left with no caption was “Old Woman Cooking Eggs.” A version of this review appears in print on , on Page E33 of the New York edition with the headline: Velázquez, Without Bells Or Whistles. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe An Old Woman Cooking Eggs | artble.com An Old Woman Cooking Eggs An Old Woman Cooking Eggs An Old Woman Cooking Eggs Date of Creation: Old Woman Frying Eggs, Vieja Friendo Huevos Height (cm): An Old Woman Cooking Eggs Story / Theme An Old Woman Cooking Eggs Diego Velazquez An Old Woman Cooking Eggs Diego Velazquez An Old Woman Cooking Eggs Diego Velazquez Velázquez's Old Woman Cooking Eggs (a literal translation from the Spanish title, Vieja Friendo Huevos) is an example of the bodegone genre. The Spanish bodegón is defined as a type of genre picture depicting normal, humble people in everyday situations and in the company of food (typically in a restaurant or tavern).

The word bodegón is derived from the Spanish word bodega, meaning a tavern or pantry. Old Woman Cooking Eggs shows a perfectly commonplace scene from the streets of 17th century Seville, and is populated by humble, low-class figures. This painting depicts an elderly woman cooking eggs over a charcoal fire. There is immense detail in this image; from the worn features of the subject's face to the strip of sliver from the glowing coals warming the eggs. The honeydew melon with a cord wrapped around it is an interesting feature as it resembles an imperial orb. Furthermore, the inclusion of the young boy contrasts youth and age and thus conveys the transience of life. Velázquez's early oeuvre is filled with bodegones. Art historians have long speculated as to why the artist was so enamored of such subjects, and the answer may have to do with his surroundings. Food has long been a subject of interest in the history of art but the Spanish bodegón is unique. As the main port to the New World, 17th century Seville was a wealthy city brimming with activity and often seedy, scurrilous people from all over Europe.

To accommodate the booming population, taverns and restaurants sprung up all over the city. These places became loaded symbolically: offering hospitality and nourishment is a positive, charitable act, while gluttony and drunkenness are sinister sins. Paintings revolving around these humble watering holes thus abounded, and the aristocracy loved them. The Commission: The circumstances surrounding the execution of Old Woman Cooking Eggs are unknown. Many art historians suggest that this as well as other bodegones, like The Waterseller of Seville , were painted for the open market and served as 'commercials' for the artist, revealing Velázquez's consummate skill in achieving northern Italian realism. Amazingly, Velázquez was only eighteen or nineteen years old at the time of painting this picture. An Old Woman Cooking Eggs Inspirations for the Work Caravaggio It is impossible not to notice the striking similarities between Velázquez's early paintings and Caravaggio 's style. The street-life subject matter, limited palette, dramatic chiaroscuro: all of these elements are present in Caravaggio's paintings, executed a decade or two before Velázquez's earliest works.

There is no proof, however, that at this point in his career Velázquez was familiar in any way with the Italian artist's works, although he would come to know them first-hand during his first trip to Rome in 1628. On the other hand, during this period Spain was inundated with art from the Netherlands and northern Italy, areas with strong roots in naturalism and still-life and genre scenes. Velázquez thus could have been influenced by the same sources that inspired Caravaggio and other artists of the Italian Baroque. An Old Woman Cooking Eggs Analysis An Old Woman Cooking Eggs Diego Velazquez An Old Woman Cooking Eggs Diego Velazquez Velázquez's Old Woman Cooking Eggs is breathtaking for its unflinching naturalism, stunning depiction of various surfaces and textures, and most of all, its mysterious, contemplative atmosphere. The following characteristics are illustrative of Velázquez's style; Composition: The ovular construction of the painting's composition opens to include the viewer, engaging him or her in the action of the painting. In several of his works, Velázquez uses various techniques to blur the line between the space of the painting and the space of the viewer, such as by extending objects beyond the picture plane.

This concept of coextensive space is common in Baroque art, notably in the oeuvre of artists like Bernini or Caravaggio. When Velázquez entered the court of King Philip IV, jealous, already-established painters accused the whiz kid of merely being a painter of "heads and hands. " Velázquez's talent is obviously much greater than that, but it is true that Velázquez's paintings reveal a remarkable sensitivity in the rendering of these two most expressive parts of the human body. In a time when low-class subjects were often depicted in art as comedic buffoons or lascivious dolts, Velázquez breaks from the mold by representing each figure's unique personality. Textures: The entire purpose behind this painting and others like it was most probably to show off Velázquez's mastery of rendering surfaces and tensions. In fact, the human figures are perhaps secondary to these masterful still-life passages. The painting is filled with a range of different materials: pottery, copper, brass, linen, fruit, egg shells, oil and more.

Color palette: As in almost all of his early paintings, in Old Woman Cooking Eggs Velázquez employs a limited palette of dirty, earthy colors: browns, dark reds and yellows, off-whites and black. Use of technique: One of the most striking aspects of this painting is the unusual lighting and dramatic chiaroscuro. The light enters the picture frontally, from the viewer's own space, and sensually caresses all the objects in its path, making copper, clay, and skin glow with rich golden tones. The background, on the other hand, is left in the inkiest, murkiest of shadows, creating a dramatic, theatrical affect. An Old Woman Cooking Eggs Related Paintings King Philip IV as a Huntsman Diego Velazquez A relative of the Italian pittura ridicola and Dutch genre scenes, the Spanish "bodegón" (derived from the Spanish word bodega, which can be translated as pantry, tavern, or wine cellar) is another type of genre scene that shows common people with food, often with an implicit moralizing message.

Velázquez was a pioneer of this genre, and his early works (from 1618-1620) are almost all bodegones. Old Woman Cooking Eggs is one of the artist's best works from this genre. Compared to Italian or Dutch examples of similar themes, these paintings are relatively sober, restrained, and dignified, lacking any overt mockery or buffoonish humor. When Velázquez first entered court, the established painters scoffed at the unproven young talent, calling him only good for mediocre portraits and lacking the scope for subjects of greater weight. However Velázquez has not ceased to be a remarkably fecund source of inspiration for art critics and art historians up until the present day, nor has his reputation as one of the greatest painters of all time been dimmed. Velázquez paved the way for early nineteenth century realist and impressionist painters, especially Édouard Manet . Since then, he has gone on to influence artists as diverse as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, and Anglo-Irish painter Francis Bacon. Such artists have demonstrated their love for the works of Velázquez by recreating some of his most noted paintings.

Diego Velázquez was hailed a father of the Spanish school of art and is one of the greatest artists that ever lived. An Old Woman Cooking Eggs Art Period Baroque Gian Lorenzo Bernini Naples Diego RodrÍguez de Silva y Velázquez was born into a society of paradox: Spain was simultaneously undergoing one of the most dramatic economic and political declines of any nation in European history, and unprecedentedly fertile, creative bursts of artistic activity. In Velázquez's hometown of Seville in particular, circles of Humanist learning, arts and letters and philosophy all flourished, constituting a particularly fecund environment for a young artist. On the other hand, Velázquez's chosen profession would become a significant obstacle in the artist's personal agenda. Spanish society was obsessed with nobility, and unlike in Italy, the visual arts were emphatically not equated with noble pursuits like literature or philosophy. Artists were seen as essentially vulgar craftsman who worked for a living with their hands, just like blacksmiths or tailors. Making matters even more complicated, the Catholic church exercised almost total power over the arts in Spain, dictating everything from subject to composition, meaning that artists had very little room to experiment or grow.

Velázquez was thus fated to struggle from the very incipience of his career. While most artists of the Baroque period suffered from a serious drop in critical opinion during the 18th century, eventually fading into oblivion until being rediscovered in the 1950s, Velázquez took an alternate route. Because of Spain's political situation, the nation was more or less isolated from the rest of Europe during the heights of Neoclassicism, meaning that Velázquez's reputation was safe from the hands of Baroque-haters like Wincklemann, who managed to destroy the reputation of such artists as Caravaggio, Carracci and Bernini . By the time Spain opened up to the rest of Europe in the beginning of the 19th century, the world was ready for Velázquez, and critics and artists alike haven't ceased singing the master painter's praises. An Old Woman Cooking Eggs Bibliography The following list offers some of the best sources of further reading on Velázquez and his works. • Brown, Dale. The World of Velázquez: 1599-1660. Time-Life Books, 1969 • Brown, Jonathan.

Velázquez, Painter and Courtier. Yale University Press, 1986 • Carr, Dawson, et al. Velázquez. Yale University Press, 2006 • Davies, David, et al. Velázquez in Seville. National Galleries of Scotland, 1996 • Harris, Enriqueta. Velázquez. Phaidon, 1982 • Kahr, Madlyn Millner. Velázquez: the art of painting. Harper and Row, 1976 • López-Rey, José. Velázquez: A catalogue raisonné of his œuvre. Faber and Faber, 1963 • Pérez Sánchez, Alfonso, et al. Velázquez. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989 • Wolf, Norbert. Diego Velázquez, 1599-1660: the face of Spain. Taschen, 1998 • Wind, Barry. Velázquez's Bodegones: A study in 17th century Spanish genre painting.

Fairfax: George Mason University Press, 1987 Want a Printed Poster, Canvas, or Replica? Great Works of Western Art - Diego Velázquez Great Works of Western Art 1610 Enters the studio of Francisco Pacheco. 1611 Signs an apprenticeship contract lasting for six years. 1617 Velázquez is licensed to work as an independent painter. 1618 He marries Pacheco’s daughter Juana. 1623 Pacheco’s good connections with the court result in a commission to paint a portrait of the king in Madrid. This is a great success and he immediately enters the service of Philip IV. 1628 Peter Paul Rubens arrives at the Spanish court representing Charles I of England on a diplomatic mission. He stays for many months and Velázquez is greatly influenced by him. 1629 The king gives him permission to visit Italy and provides him with letters of introduction. He visits Venice, Bologna and Rome. 1630 Velázquez is in Naples. 1631 Returns to Madrid. 1643 He is appointed Ayuda de Cámara.

1649 Velázquez visits Italy again in order to purchase works of art for the king and to contract painters to work on palace improvements. Visits Milan, Venice, Florence, Bologna and Parma and then stays in Rome. 1650 While in Rome he executes several influential works including the portrait of Innocent X which was greatly admired. 1651 Returns to Spain. 1656 Paints his masterpiece, Las Meninas. 1658 Velázquez is granted the title Knight of Santiago. 1660 He is responsible for the organisation of the ceremonial meeting, on the Franco Spanish border, of Philip IV and Louis XIV during which the French king took the Infanta María Theresa as his bride. Velázquez becomes ill on his return to Madrid and dies.

c1616 The Three Musicians, Berlin, Gemäldegalerie 1618 Three Men at a Table, St Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum 1618 Old Woman Cooking Eggs , Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland c1618 Kitchen Scene with Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, London, National Gallery c1618 St John the Evangelist on the Island of Patmos , London, National Gallery 1618 Kitchen Scene (La Mulata), Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland 1618 The Immaculate Conception, London, National Gallery 1619 The Water Carrier of Seville , London, Wellington Museum, Apsley House 1619 The Adoration of the Magi, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado 1620 Abbess Jerónima de la Fuente, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado 1620 The Lunch, Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts 1620 The Supper at Emmaus, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 1624–27 Philip IV, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado c1628 Christ after the Flagellation contemplated

 by the Christian Soul, London, National Gallery 1629 The Triumph of Bacchus, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado 1630 Joseph’s Coat Presented to Jacob, Madrid, Escorial 1630 Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado c1632 Philip IV of Spain in Brown and Silver, London, National Gallery 1632 Don Baltasar Carlos with a Dwarf, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 1634 Don Juan Mateos, Berlin, Gemäldegalerie 1635 Surrender of Breda, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado c1635 Coronation of the Virgin, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado c1635 The Infante Baltasar Carlos on Horseback, London, Dulwich Picture Gallery 1632–37 Philip IV Hunting Wild Boar, London, National Gallery 1641 Mars, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado 1644 Don Diego de Acedo, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado 1650 Portrait of Pope Innocent X, Rome, Galleria Doria Pamphini c

1650 The Rokeby Venus, London, National Gallery 1653–4 Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Pink Gown, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum 1656 Las Meninas, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado 1659 Infante Philip Prosper, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum 1659 Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum 1644–60 Philip IV, King of Spain, London, Dulwich Picture Gallery Diego Velázquez - Featured Paintings 1000+ images about Art - Diego Velasquez on Pinterest | Baroque, Queen and Portrait Queen Maria Anna of Spain in a Red Dress, 1655/60 By Diego Velázquez See More Diego Velázquez, Posters and Prints at Art.com Diego Velázquez (285 Items) SWITCH TO VISUAL MODE What's this?You are browsing art in Classic Mode.

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Starting from $39.99 From $39.99 $27.99 Add to Cart {ImageUrl:' Vel&amp;amp;#225;zquez',ArtistId:29001,Title:'Las Meninas (With Velazquez Self-Portrait) or the Family of Philip IV 1656',PODConfigID:8880731,APNum:2589043,AvailableInOtherSizes:'true',ItemDisplayTypeID:43,Source:'GalleryPage'} Las Meninas (The Maids of Honour or the Family of Philip IV) Starting from $19.99 From $19.99 $13.99 Add to Cart {ImageUrl:' Vel&amp;amp;#225;zquez',ArtistId:29001,Title:'Las Meninas (The Maids of Honour or the Family of Philip IV)',PODConfigID:9664571,APNum:7617554,AvailableInOtherSizes:'true',ItemDisplayTypeID:5,Source:'GalleryPage'} Christ on the Cross circa 1630 Starting from $39.9

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Question: Which artist painted 'The Old Woman Cooking Eggs' and 'The Rokeby Venus'?
Answer: VELASQUEZ