Lecture 36: Baroque Painting in Spain
victor to the vanquished. Spinola would normally be mounted; instead, the
men are on equal footing.In 1648–1651, Velázquez made his second trip to Rome, and while there,
he painted the Portrait of Pope Innocent X (c. 1649). A stroke of historical
serendipity gave Velázquez the opportunity to paint this portrait. In late
1648, the artist was sent on a second trip to Italy to acquire paintings and
sculpture for the Spanish royal collection. In late 1649, he presented a letter
of introduction to the pope, who holds it in his left hand in the painting.Innocent X was an austere pope who saw himself as a reformer after the
excesses of the Barberini papacy. His severity and impatience are apparent
in this portrait. Velázquez may have had no more than a quarter of an hour
to make a quick oil sketch from which to develop this masterpiece, but he
made the most of it in capturing the wary, distrustful, harsh, and vindictive
character of the pope. The symphonic variations on red here are legendary
and indescribable. The cape is a saturated crimson with À aring highlights of
pink and cerise, but those are just a few of the variations. The white garment
covering the legs is the foil to the crimson electricity, and here the paint is
dense, clotted, and weighty, as well as luminous.Our last example is The Maids of Honor (Las Meniñas) (c. 1656). One of the
most discussed paintings in European art, The Maids of Honor is probably the
¿ rst painting in which a living king and a painter at work are seen together in
a studio. The painter cannot be missed; he stands just to the side of his easel,
palette and brush in hand, and seems to look in our direction. But surely he
is not looking at us.Is he looking at the subject of his large painting? If so, that would mean
that he is painting a portrait, and it would have to be a portrait of the king
and queen, because we see King Philip IV and Queen Mariana reÀ ected
in a mirror at the back of this large, dark studio. At ¿ rst, it may not seem
probable that such a tall canvas would be necessary for a double portrait
of two full-length ¿ gures, but why not? A full-length portrait of one of the
king’s daughters was close to 9 feet tall, and the canvas in this painting must
not be much taller.