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Diego Rodriguez de Silva Velazquez (Velasquez)
(Jun. 6, 1599 Seville - Aug. 6, 1660 Madrid) Spanish Oil Painting Artist Biography.
Diego Velazquez was Spain's greatest painter and also one of the supreme artists of all time. A master of technique, highly individual in style, Diego Velasquez may have had a greater influence on European art than any other painter and is acknowledged as one of the worlds artists. His father was of noble Portuguese descent. In his teens he studied art with Francisco Pacheco, whose daughter he married. The young Velasquez once declared, "I would rather be the first painter of common things than second in higher art." He learned much from studying nature. After his marriage at the age of 19, Velasquez went to Madrid. When he was 24 he painted a portrait of Philip IV, who became his art patron.
In 1628 Peter Paul Rubens came to the court at Madrid on a diplomatic mission. Among the few painters with whom he associated was Velazquez. In August 1629 Velazquez departed from Barcelona for Genoa and spent most of the next two years traveling in Italy. Returning to Spain in January 1631. In the course of his journey he closely studied both the art of the Renaissance and contemporaneous oil painting. He returned to Italy 20 years later and bought many oil paintings by Titian and Tintoretto for the king's collection. Except for these journeys Velasquez lived in Madrid as court painter. His paintings include landscapes, mythological, religious subjects and scenes from common life.
Duties of Diego Rodriguez de Silva Velazquez royal offices also occupied his time. In 1634 Velazquez organized the decoration of the throne room in the new royal palace of Buen Retiro, this scheme consisted of 12 scenes of battles in which Spanish troops had been victorious, painted by the most prestigious artists of the day, including Velazquez himself and royal equestrian portraits. Velazquez's contribution to the cycle of battle oil paintings included the Surrender of Breda (1634, Museo del Prado), portraying a magnanimous Spanish general receiving the leader of defeated Flemish troops after the siege of that northern town in 1624. The delicacy of handling and astonishing range of emotions captured in a single oil painting make this the most celebrated historical composition of Spanish baroque. He was eventually made marshal of the royal household and as such he was responsible for the royal quarters and for planning ceremonies. In 1660 Velasquez was in charge of his last and greatest ceremony, the wedding of the Infanta Maria Theresa to Louis XIV of France. This was a most elaborate affair. Worn out from these labors, Velasquez contracted a fever from which he died.
The key works of the painter's last two decades are his masterpiece, The Maids of Honor, Las Meninas (1656, Museo del Prado), a stunning group portrait of the royal family and Velazquez himself in the act of painting. Through his practice of using pigment in short or long, thin or thick, apparently hasty and spontaneous but actually most skillfully calculated strokes, Velasquez was a forerunner of the modern practice or direct oil painting. 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. Because of Velasquez' great skill in merging color, light, space, rhythm of line and mass in such a way that all have equal value, he was known as "the painter's painter." Ever since he taught, Velasquez has directly or indirectly led painters to make original contributions to the development of art. Others who have been noticeably influenced by him are Goya, Camille Corot, Edouard Manet and Whistler.
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Surrender of Breda
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Las Meninas
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Venus at Her Mirror
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