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| Las Meninas by Diego Velasquez Image from Wikipeida |
This masterpiece by Velasquez is one of the highlights of the Prado museum. The piece is massive clearly designed to be displayed on an impressive palatial wall. The painting depicts the Spanish princess surrounded by two ladies in waiting (Las Meninas). In addition there is a court dwarf (the Prado includes many portraits of court "guests" often unique individuals that served as a private sideshow including dwarfs, bearded women, and a 150lb 6 year old). The painting also shows the artist himself, the king and queen's reflection in a mirror and other court figures. One of the subtle marvels of this piece is the composition. The arrangement of the figures draws your eye guiding you through a particular path in the work that is almost a spiral that starts small and expands outward.
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| Hanging in the Prado. Picture sourced from google search. |
This particular piece of art has unexpectedly woven itself into our life in a way one could only describe as stalking.
It all started in 2011. Sean and I were in the most beautiful city of Barcelona. It was our first time traveling abroad together. We were just discovering our shared appreciation and timing of art museums. (We are very blessed to enjoy art museums on the same scale. We spent 12 hours at the Louvre together. We both tend to breeze through the same video exhibits and overly abstract post modern art. And neither of us understand the work of Richard Serra.) While in Barcelona we visited the Picasso museum (another common theme in our travels). The Picasso museum in Barcelona is amazing. Not only is it nestled away in a wonderfully unimposing classic Spanish home on a quiet street in Barcelona but it houses a very unique collection of Picasso works. There are few if any of his seminal works on the walls however there is an entire gallery dedicated to his study of Las Meninas. Picasso painted 58 works inspired by the early Spanish master and his seminal work. And amazingly the entire series all 58 paintings are housed at the Barcelona museum. He painted many of the figures from the work individually and in small groups. Perhaps exploring some of the compositional elements that makes the original so great.
Of course my high school art history class delved into Las Meninas but I never really thought much about it until I saw the collection of Picasso works.
It was not long after seeing the Picasso collection of Las Meninas in 2011 that a building two block from our apartment in Capitol Hill scheduled for demolition featured an art installation while the contractors waited for permission to tear down the former Indian Restaurant. One artist covered the building in reclaimed wood and another filled the windows with a piece titled "Lamps Meninas". As you might have guessed, this artist created Las Meninas using lighting fixtures.
This piece remained on the corner of an intersection we regularly passed for almost a year, a constant reminder of this painting.
I can't pretend we are the first people to be haunted by this work, this particular piece has captured the imagination of dozens of artists. The Wikipedia article lists at least 20 major artists who have made pieces inspired by the original including Dali, Goya, and Sargent. Now that we have paid homage to the original, the question remains, are we free from its allure or have we only become further ensnared.
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| Las Meninas by Picasso sourced from Google search |
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This piece remained on the corner of an intersection we regularly passed for almost a year, a constant reminder of this painting.
I can't pretend we are the first people to be haunted by this work, this particular piece has captured the imagination of dozens of artists. The Wikipedia article lists at least 20 major artists who have made pieces inspired by the original including Dali, Goya, and Sargent. Now that we have paid homage to the original, the question remains, are we free from its allure or have we only become further ensnared.
One of my educators suggested that in his studies of this painting that Velasquez was demonstrating his distain for the royal "inbreeding" by representing the court as dwarfs, etc. Thought that was an interesting theory. Either way, I have always loved that the painter is in the painting and that the Royals were horrified that he included himself in such a display. Clearly not fond of the Royals.
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