Category: Art

I’m sure you know Diego Velazquez, an impressive Spanish artist from the 17th century, if you don’t I’ll talk a bit about him in a future post. Today I want to focus on his famous painting Las Meninas, which lives at El Prado museum in Madrid, Spain.

This colossal masterpiece (125 x 105 in) was commissioned by the king Phillip IV. There are many versions of what Velazquez was depicting, it looks like a mundane day at the royal palace where the infanta Margaret Theresa is being tended by her maids. If you look at the left hand side you see Velazquez painting the scene on this gigantic canvas looking at us. If he is looking at us, that means he was probably painting from a mirror or at least give us that impression. If you look even closer at Velazquez right hand side you’ll notice a small picture of two people on the wall, they are the king and queen reflected on a mirror. If this is the case he would’ve been portraying them on that large canvas? So the viewers would be the king and queen, which are reflected on the mirror, instead of us. Or is this a self-portrait including the royal family. Not to mention the small figure exiting the door, intriguing. Another version is that he was painting a double portrait of the king and queen and the king called his daughter to entertain them while they were being portrayed and Velazquez adjusted the portrait and made it a whole scene, if this is the case he would’ve been given extremely flexibility to make this painting bu the king.

There are many versions about this painting’s meaning, but there is no doubt he was a genius to create a scene based on the king’s requests and what was going on at that moment. I hope you enjoyed this short art story.