Criticism of Diego Velàzquez’ “Las Meninas, Sebastiàn de Morra, and Baltasar Carlos and a Dwarf”

Diego Velàzquez was called the “noblest and most commanding man among the artists of his country.” He was a master realist, and no painter has surpassed him in the ability to seize essential features and fix them on canvas with a few broad, sure strokes. “His men and women seem to breathe,” it has been said; “his horses are full of action and his dogs of life.” Because of Velàzquez’ great skill in …

…the social and natural order. In these royal portraits, whatever the interpretation Velàzquez made or whatever emotional reaction he experienced he kept to himself. Royalty, courtliness of the most rigid character was his task to portray not individual personality. Through his practice of using pigment in short or long, thin or thick, apparently hasty and spontaneous but actually most skillfully calculated strokes, Velàzquez was the precursor of the modern practice or direct painting.