Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV, and one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age.

He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, and commoners, culminating in the production of his masterpiece Las Meninas (1656).

Velázquez was born in Seville, Spain, the first child of João Rodrigues de Silva and Jerónima Velázquez, and was baptized at the church of St. Peter in Seville on Sunday, June 6, 1599. The baptism most likely occurred a few days or weeks after his birth. His paternal grandparents, Diogo da Silva and Maria Rodrigues, had moved to Seville from their native Portugal decades earlier. When Velázquez was offered knighthood in 1658, he claimed descent from the lesser nobility in order to qualify; in fact, however, his grandparents were tradespeople, and possibly Jewish conversos.

Velázquez was educated by his parents to fear God and, intended for a learned profession, received good training in languages and philosophy. Influenced by many artists, he showed an early gift for art; consequently, he began to study under Francisco de Herrera, a vigorous painter who disregarded the Italian influence of the early Seville school. Velázquez remained with him for one year. It was probably from Herrera that he learned to use brushes with long bristles.

After leaving Herrera's studio when he was 12 years old, Velázquez began to serve as an apprentice under Francisco Pacheco, an artist and teacher in Seville. Though considered a generally dull, undistinguished painter, Pacheco sometimes expressed a simple, direct realism in contradiction to the style of Raphael that he was taught. Velázquez remained in Pacheco's school for five years, studying proportion and perspective and witnessing the trends in the literary and artistic circles of Seville.

Early period
By the early 1620s, his position and reputation were assured in Seville. On April 23, 1618, Velázquez married Juana Pacheco, the daughter of his teacher. She bore him two daughters. The elder, Francisca de Silva Velázquez y Pacheco, married painter Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo. The younger, Ignacia de Silva Velázquez y Pacheco, born in 1621, died in infancy.

Velázquez produced notable works during this time. Known for his compositions of amusing genre scenes, also called bodegones, such as Old Woman Frying Eggs. Christ in the House of Martha combines this bodegón type in a religious scene. His sacred subjects also include Adoración de los Reyes and Jesús y los peregrinos de Emaús (Christ and the Pilgrims of Emmaus), both of which begin to express his more pointed and careful realism.

Portraits
Besides the forty portraits of Philip by Velázquez, he painted portraits of other members of the royal family: Philip's first wife, Elisabeth of Bourbon, and her children, especially her eldest son, Don Baltasar Carlos, of whom there is a beautiful full-length in a private room at Buckingham Palace. Cavaliers, soldiers, churchmen, and the poet Francisco de Quevedo sat for Velázquez.

Velázquez also painted several dwarfs in Philip's court, often with respect and sympathetically, as in The Jester Don Diego de Aced, whose intelligent face and huge folio with ink-bottle and pen by his side show him to be a wiser and better-educated man than many of the gallants of the court. Pablo de Valladolid , a buffoon evidently acting a part, and The Buffoon of Coria belong to this middle period.

The greatest of the religious paintings by Velázquez also belongs to this middle period, the Christ Crucified. It is a work of tremendous originality, depicting Christ immediately after death. The Savior's head hangs on his breast and a mass of dark tangled hair conceals part of the face. The figure stands alone. The picture was lengthened to suit its place in an oratory, but this addition has since been removed. Some believe that the man in this painting is his uncle.

Philip now entrusted Velázquez with carrying out a design on which he had long set his heart: the founding of an academy of art in Spain. Rich in pictures, Spain was weak in statuary, and Velázquez was commissioned once again to proceed to Italy to make purchases.

Diego Velázquez - Volume 2: Coming soon

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