VELAZQUEZ, DIEGO RODRIGUEZ DE SILVA Y (1599-1660), the head of the Spanish school of painting and one of the greatest painters the world has known, was born in Seville and was baptized on June 6, 1599. His European fame is of com paratively recent origin, dating from the first quarter of the 19th century.
He was the son of Rodriguez de Silva, a lawyer in Seville, descended from a noble Portuguese family. Following a common Spanish usage, the artist is known by his mother's name Velazquez. He was known to his contemporaries as Diego de Silva Velazquez, and signed his name thus. He was intended for a learned profession, for which he received a good training in lan guages and philosophy. But the bent of the boy was towards art, and he was placed under the elder Herrera. Herrera was a bold and effective painter; but he was at the same time a man of unruly temper, and his pupils could seldom stay long with him. Velazquez soon left Herrera's studio and betook himself to the learned and pedantic Pacheco, in whose school he remained for five years, seeing all that was best in the literary and artistic circles of Seville. Here he fell in love with his master's daughter Juana de Miranda, whom he married on April 23, 1618. The young painter set himself to copy the commonest things about him—earthenware jars of the country people, birds, fish, fruit and flowers of the market-place. Carrying out this idea still further, Velazquez felt that to master the subtlety of the human face he must make this a special study, and he accordingly engaged a peasant lad to be his servant and model, making innumerable studies in charcoal and chalk, and catching his every expression. We see this model, probably, in the laughing boy of the Hermitage "Breakfast," or in the youngest of the "Musicians," acquired for the Berlin Museum in 1906. The position and fame of Velazquez were now assured at Seville. There his wife bore him two daugh ters—all his family so far as is known. The younger died in infancy, while the elder, Francisca, in due time married Bautista ' del Mazo, a painter, whose large family is that which is represented in the important picture in Vienna which was at one time called the "Family of Velazquez." This picture is now by common con
sent given to Mazo. Of his early Seville manner we have an excellent example in "El Aguador" (the Water-Carrier) at Apsley House (London). The brushwork is bold and broad, and the out lines firmly marked. As is usual with Velazquez at this time, the harmony of colours is red, brown and yellow, reminding one of Ribera. For sacred subjects we may turn to the "Adoration of the Magi" at Madrid, dated 1619, and the "Christ and the Pilgrims of Emmaus" in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
But Velazquez was now eager to see more of the world. Madrid, with its fine Titians, held out strong in ducements. Accordingly, in 1622, fortified with letters of intro duction to Fonseca, who held a good position at court, he spent some months there. Here he painted the portrait of the poet Gongora, a commission from Pacheco (in the gallery at Madrid). In the following year he was summoned to return by Olivares, the all-powerful minister of Philip IV., fifty ducats being allowed to defray his expenses. On this occasion he was accompanied by his father-in-law. Next year (1624) he received from the king three hundred ducats to pay the cost of the removal of his family to Madrid, which became his home for the remainder of his life. King Philip remained for a period of thirty-six years the faithful and attached friend of Velazquez. By his equestrian portrait of the king, painted in 1623, Velazquez secured admission to the royal service with a salary of twenty ducats per month, besides medical attendance, lodgings and payment for the pictures he might paint. The portrait was exhibited on the steps of San Felipe, and was received with enthusiasm, being vaunted by poets, among them Pacheco. It has unfortunately disappeared. The Prado, hcwever, has two portraits of the king in which the harshness of the Seville period has disappeared.