Las meninas painting by Diego de Velásquez: analysis and meaning

Picture Las Meninas by Diego de Velázquez was painted in 1656 and portrays the Infanta Margarita, daughter of King Felipe IV, in the painter's workshop located in the Royal Alcázar Palace in Madrid. It is currently in the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain.

The piece is part of the baroque style that contrasts the formality of the royal family and its surroundings with the daily life common to all. It was originally titled Portrait of the Lady Empress with her Ladies and a Dwarf. After a fire in the 18th century, it was renamed The family of Lord King Phelipe Quarto. It is later titled The family.

In 1843 the name that we know today is registered for the first time, Las Meninas, in a catalog of the Prado Museum. The word "menina" means "girl" in Portuguese, and it was then used in Spain to refer to the caretakers of the children of the royal family.

The contrast of light and shadow together with the play of perspectives achieved through the mirror of the background and the gazes of the characters, painted on a natural scale, generates the illusion of being inside the picture. However, what is the meaning of the box

Las Meninas? How to interpret these characteristic aspects of the work?

Frame analysis Las Meninas

Picture Las Meninas represents the family, home and intimate atmosphere of royalty, whose center is the portrait of the Infanta Margarita surrounded by her small court. For this reason, it is today one of the most important works of Spanish painting.

It is characterized by its innovative concept, excellent execution in technique, the particular use of perspective, the contrast between light and shadow, the distribution of shots and characters and the recreation of the environment family.

Description of the painting Las Meninas

On Las Meninas, Velázquez applied the oil painting technique on a canvas surface 3.18 meters wide by 2.76 meters high. At that time there were no such large fabrics, so, with the passage of time, the seams that join the canvases of the painting have stood out.

The innovative nature of the painting even starts from the genre: it rides between the corporate portrait and the conversation scenes, as reported in the digital catalog of the Prado Museum.

Now, we ask ourselves: what characters appear in the painting Las Meninas? What meaning does this painting have? The work can be analyzed from infinite areas broken down superficially as follows:

Characters

In the frame Las Meninas of Diego de Velázquez, 11 characters can be distinguished, in addition to the mastiff that is found at ground level in the scene:

1. Diego de Velázquez: the painter paints himself hidden behind a large canvas. His posture with the suspended brush denotes the intention of showing that painting is an intellectual process by which the created mental image is portrayed. The mystery of the motif of the picture that he paints in Las Meninas she increases its complexity.

2. Maria Agustina Sarmiento: she is one of the meninas and, therefore, maid of honor to the infanta. It is located on the right side of the Infanta Margarita or on the left side from the viewer's perspective. He is on his knees offering a container of edible red clay to the Infanta on a silver tray.

3. Mariana from Austria: she is the second wife of King Felipe IV and she helps to complete the mystery of the mirror in the last plane of the painting.

4. Philip IV: represented in the reflection of the mirror in the background plane. Is that what Velázquez paints on the large canvas that remains hidden from the viewer?

5. The Infanta Margaritaher: as the main figure of the work, she is portrayed manifesting, at the same time, her real origin and her condition as a child. She is surrounded by her bridesmaids or the meninas.

6. Jose Nieto: he served as head of upholstery for the queen. His role in the painting is to introduce light into the room from the back, increasing perspective and depth. He stands in front of an open door where the light from the corridor enters.

7. Isabel de Velasco: it is on the left side of the Infanta Margarita or on the right side from the viewer's perspective. Her gaze is directed towards the audience, creating complexity to the analysis of the perspective of the painting.

8. Marcela de Ulloa: she held the position of "minor guard of ladies."

9. The guardian: is the position of the modern butler. He talks to Marcela de Ulloa.

10. Maribárbola: she is a German dwarf who belongs to the group of court jesters.

11. Nicolasito Pertusato: he is a jester of the Italian court who gives a childish and playful air by teasing the mastiff with his foot.

Light

In the frame Las Meninas Diego de Velázquez's play of light and shadow is one of the best achieved aspects. We can distinguish three sources of light: the most important is the one that comes from the balconies and incorporates the viewer in that shot, the second light comes from the back of the corridor and the third is the dimmest, captured by the mirror.

Blueprints

In the frame Las Meninas Three defined planes can be distinguished:

• in the foreground The Infanta Margarita is found with her bridesmaids: "las meninas"; the court jesters and the mastiff representing innocence and childhood;
• In the background Velázquez himself is to the left of the infanta and to the extreme right is the guardian and the woman guard, contrasting the intellectual side with the superficial side; Y
• in the third plane We can see the host and the kings who at first glance seem to be the least important in the painting but are the ones who give the work intellectual and technical depth.

Atmosphere

The atmosphere that Diego de Velázquez manages to convey in his painting Las Meninas she contrasts with the nature of the family. The royal family is considered unattainable but Velázquez makes the viewer feel intimacy. Still, how to interpret this?

It may interest you: Diego Velázquez: biography, paintings and characteristics of the master of the Spanish Baroque.

Meaning of Las Meninas by Velázquez

To this day there is no single explanation about the meaning of Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez when we have the information. According to the researcher Francisco Calvo Serraller, two interpretations or hypotheses predominate, among many others that have been proposed.

First hypothesis: the succession of the throne

One interpretation insists on the political character, that is, that the painting embodies, at the same time, concern and hope for the succession to the Spanish throne. The other suggests that this canvas is an allegory of the triumph of Painting, that is, the idea that painting has transcended beyond the mechanical arts.

Regarding this hypothesis, based on the centrality of the Infanta Margarita in the composition, it is presumed that it expresses the hope in the salvation of the dynasty.

Second hypothesis: allegory of the triumph of painting

More curiosity arouses, however, the second thesis. In effect, iconographers have identified the paintings in the background as copies of Apollo victor of Bread Y Pallas Athena Y Arachne by Jordaens and Rubens, respectively, made at the time by Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo. These works are allegories of painting and its nobility that somehow emphasizes the separation between art and crafts that had begun in the Renaissance.

Probably, it is for this reason that Velázquez represents himself thinking and not acting on the canvas. In this way, he highlights the importance of painting as an intellectual activity and not as a mechanical, artisan activity.

Velázquez also bears the symbol of the order of Santiago. With this, it indirectly alludes to the close relationship and intellectual conversations that the painter had with Felipe IV, who advocated that the order be granted.

Mirrors: reality at its extreme

One of the most commented elements of the painting has to do with the mirror inserted in the background. This mirror serves several functions. One of them is to provide light. The other, to add depth. But besides that, he brings a conceptual dimension.

Through the mirror game, Velázquez introduces an ellipsis. He has eliminated two characters from the representation and has referred to them as reflections of the mirror, that is, an image within the image. The game is completed with the painter's gaze towards the "spectator" who occupies what would be, in reality, the position of the reflected characters, who would be being portrayed on the canvas that the painter hidden.

It was not the first time that a mirror appeared in a painting. We see similar exercises in previous works, such as the canvas The Alnorfini marriage by Van Eyck, which includes a mirror with reflections of the scene. Velázquez himself did something similar in his Venus with mirror, painted between 1647 and 1651. But in Las Meninas, Velázquez does something very original by also including his portrait and omitting the content of the canvas that he paints.

Although the elliptical construction is typical of the Baroque, Velázquez does not treat it from the point of view of plane geometry, but spatial, of which "reality" is its extreme. He has played with the effect and has played with the limits between reality and fiction. In this way, Velázquez ends up affirming the greatness and nobility of painting that embodies geometric, literary and philosophical concepts.

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