After the death of King Philip III, official portrait painters were needed in Spain. Who knows if perhaps Diego, Pacheco’s son-in-law, could meet these demands?… This time Velázquez’s father-in-law didn’t let him go to Madrid accompanied just by a young apprentice, as he had done in his first visit: this time Pacheco himself traveled with him. In August 1623 they arrived at the court in Madrid, where they were received by Don Juan de Fonseca, the royal chaplain and mediator on the trip. Velázquez quickly made a portrait of him that was immediately shown to the young sovereign. Enthusiastic, the king in turn wanted to be portrayed by Velázquez, who also made a sketch of the Prince of Wales on the way. In short, Velázquez achieved what was most in his interest: being appointed, on October 6, 1623, as painter to the king with a fixed salary of 24 ducats per month, plus other perks, thus filling the vacancy of Rodrigo de Villandrando who had died the previous year. He had achieved to serve his sovereign and live at the expense of the State. And so began the palatine career of the court employee Velázquez, who settled in Madrid forever.
There’s abundant documentation from his official career that, like a modern “curriculum“, tells us all the details. In 1627 he was named “Chamber Ugier” with a salary of 350 ducats annually, and from 1628 he held the position of chamber painter, vacant upon the death of Santiago Morán, considered the most important position among court painters. His “Chamber Ugier” position soon was overcome by becoming “Wardrobe Helper”, then “Valet”, “Assistant to the Superintendent of Royal Works”, “Inspector of Works of the Alcázar”, “Inspector of the works of the Ochavada Room” and, finally, “Master Chamberkeeper”. The position of Chamberkeeper was inferior to those of “Buttler” and “Chief Waiter”, and his main duties consisted of planning the accommodations of the king and his family during their trips, distributing the balconies of the Plaza Mayor during bullfights or festivals, taking care of the heating of the Alcázar, acquiring fuel or placing mats, and directing cleaning operations. With all these obligations in his hands, Velázquez painted little compared to other artists of his time, but thanks to his subordinate but privileged situation, he was not only in contact with the best works of painting in the royal collections, from which he learned what no one in the country could teach him, but he didn’t have to go hunting for commissions or endure the impositions of canons, convents or individuals, which would have done nothing but hinder the emergence of his style, that the king, poet and artist, could appreciate.
His main job as Chamber Painter was to make portraits of the royal family, which represented a significant part of his production. Another of his duties was to paint pictures to decorate the royal palaces, which gave him greater freedom in choosing themes and composition, freedom that ordinary painters did not enjoy as they were tied to commissions and market demand. Velázquez could also accept private commissions. We know from a contemporary account that a lady from Zaragoza rejected her portrait made by Velázquez, because “… she did not like it at all, but in particular because of the way the valona [an elaborate lace collar] she was wearing was portrayed by him [Velázquez], which was a very fine Flanders embroidery”. Velazquez’s sin consisted of having painted the fine garment using only four brushstrokes… The king or his family never made comments of this type. If Velázquez didn’t paint much in the Palace, he was able to paint as he wanted, with a freedom of style that other courts (like Paris) had not accepted. And when envious attacked him, Philip IV supported him, giving proof of a good taste much greater than his aptitudes to govern.
From that first period in Madrid, which goes from 1623 to 1629, some of his works remain, such as the full-length portraits of the king (1623-1628), of his brother, the elegant Infante Don Carlos (1626-1628), and of the Count-Duke of Olivares with the key of Camarero Mayor (1624). In all these portraits, Velázquez’s workmanship appears refined, as does his color palette.
Felipe IV, oil on canvas, by Diego Velázquez, 1623 repainted in 1628, 198 × 101.5 cm (Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain). This is one of the first portraits Velázquez painted of the king shortly after settling in Madrid, though he completely retouched it around 1628. This is an elegant and sober portrait, in which, with tight brushstrokes and a reduced color palette, Velázquez manifested the royal majesty thanks to the dignity and appearance of the sitter rather than through the hidden attributes of power and the administration of justice that discreetly surround it: the Golden Fleece, which hangs from a black ribbon and not from a gold necklace, thus reinforcing the image of austerity without losing its meaning, the sword of justice, on which the left hand rests, the memorial or bill that he carries in the right hand and the low table on which the high-top hat rests, alluding both to his government functions.
Retrato del infante don Carlos (Portrait of the Infante Don Carlos), oil on canvas, by Diego Velázquez, ca. 1626-1628, 209 × 125 cm (Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain). This portrait of the Infante Don Carlos, brother of King Felipe IV constitutes one of the most attractive and elegant portraits made by Velázquez during his first years in Madrid. Here, Charles of Austria adopts a relaxed and elegant posture, standing, dressed in a black suit with gray braided highlights, and wearing across his chest a huge gold chain from which hangs the Golden Fleece. The infant’s hands stand out, the right one holding a glove by a finger, while the left, gloved, holds a black felt hat. Velázquez portrayed the infante as a neat but perhaps somewhat indolent young man, elegant, and with an apparently spontaneous pose, but full of majesty, capable of sustaining his elevated position with his sole presence without needing to surround him with the emblematic apparatus of power to exalt him. By placing him in an empty space, silhouetting his figure on a gray twilight background in which only one line marks the limit between the wall and the floor, Velázquez is anticipating solutions that he will apply in some of his most famous portraits and will reach their maximum stance in the portrait of the jester Pablo de Valladolid (ca. 1636-1637).
El Conde-Duque de Olivares (The Count-Duke of Olivares), oil on canvas, by Diego Velázquez, 1624, 201.2 x 111.1 cm, (São Paulo Museum of Art, Brazil). The count-duke appears standing, with his left hand on the hilt of his sword, and his right hand resting on a table covered with a red velvet matt where part of a hat can be seen. The count dresses a sober black suit with a cape, but shows off the symbols of his power, a gold chain with large links, the gold spurs of his role as senior horse groom, the butler’s key at his waist and the red cross of the Order of Calatrava engraved on his suit, highlighting the importance, power and seriousness of the character. His enormous chest topped with a smooth lace neck, contrasts with the smaller size of his head, which generates a curious visual impact.
In 1627 a painting competition was held on the theme of ‘The Expulsion of the Moors from Spain’, in which Velázquez participated, alongside Angelo Nardi, Patricio Caxés and Vicenzo Carducci, painters of Italian origin highly renowned in Madrid at the time. He won the first place with a large canvas (which burned in the fire of the Alcázar, in 1734), affirming his position at court and demonstrating that he was as capable as anyone in the reputedly superior genre of historical composition, although he dedicated mostly to portraiture. What he seems to have abandoned since his move to Madrid was the still life, with or without figures, although his great talent in this genre was highlighted in accessories he included in his portraits, almost always significant or symbolic: books, inkwells, spheres, weapons, flowers, watches, etc. In 1628 he painted another composition, this time mythological or a “fable”, a Triumph of Bacchus (better known today as The Drunkards, 1628-1629), in which he expressed his irony at the pompous mythological paintings by Italians, French or Flemish artists. Bacchus, god of wine, has the appearance of a vulgar young man half dressed and his followers are nothing but rogues and beggars.
El triunfo de Baco (The Triumph of Bacchus), oil on canvas, by Diego Velázquez, 1628-1629, 165 × 225 cm, (Museo del Prado, Madrid). Also popularly known as The Drunkards (Los Borrachos), this canvas was painted about five years after Velázquez’s arrival in Madrid from Seville, and shortly before his first trip to Italy. At the Royal sites, Velázquez was able to see the king’s collection of Italian paintings and was impressed by the mythological paintings with nudes in the collection, extremely rare in his native Seville. For this reason he was encouraged to treat the same genre, although with a very personal approach. The painting describes a scene where the god Bacchus appears crowning one of the eight drunks who surround him with ivy leaves. Another almost mythological character observes the coronation on the left while holding a cup of wine. One of the characters accompanying the god looks at the viewer while smiling. Here, Bacchus is represented as the god who rewards or gives men the wine that temporarily frees them from their tribulations. In baroque literature, Bacchus was considered an allegory of man’s liberation from the slavery of his daily life. In this painting, Velázquez may have made a parody of said allegory. The god is represented as another person within the small celebration, but he is provided with lighter skin than the others to recognize him more easily. The scene can be divided into two halves. The one on the left, with the highly illuminated figure of Bacchus, is close to the Italian style inspired by Caravaggio. Bacchus and the character behind him on the left, allude to classical myth and are represented in the traditional way. The idealization in the face of the god stands out, as well as the light that illuminates him and the rather classicist style. The right half, on the other hand, presents some drunks, men from the street who invite us to participate in their party, with a very Spanish air similar to Ribera‘s works. There is no idealization in them, but rather they are portrayed with aged and worn faces. The clear light that illuminates Bacchus is not maintained on this side of the canvas, but rather these figures are immersed in an obvious chiaroscuro. Furthermore, Velázquez treats them with a more loose brushstroke. There are several elements that give naturalism to the work, such as the bottle and the jug that appear on the ground next to the god’s feet, or the realism that his body presents. Playing with the reflection of light, Velázquez managed to give relief and textures to the bottle and the jug, creating a resemblance to the still lifes of his Sevillian period. The Triumph of Bacchus is one of the paintings by Velázquez that Francisco de Goya reproduced in an etching in 1778. This engraving was widely disseminated and is known that even Édouard Manet owned a copy of it.
The Triumph of Bacchus, engraving by Francisco de Goya after the painting by Velázquez (1778; copy of the first edition kept in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC., United States of America).
The Democritus (also known as The Geographer, 1628-1629) could also belong to this period. Once attributed to José de Ribera, with whose style it bears a close resemblance, it causes some perplexity due to the different way in which hands and head were treated, with a very loose brushstroke, compared to the tighter brushstrokes employed on the rest of the composition. This could be explained by a later reworking of those parts of the canvas around 1640, a practice common for Velázquez.
El geógrafo o Demócrito (The Geographer or Democritus), oil on canvas, by Diego Velázquez, ca. 1628-1629, retouched in 1640, 101 × 81 cm (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, France). The work depicts a figure slightly more than half-length and in profile, with his face turned towards the viewer, at whom he smiles while pointing with his left hand to the globe in front of him. The globe rests on a table on which there are also two closed books. He wears a black doublet with a white lace valance and a reddish cape that, gathered around his forearms, wraps around his back. In this canvas, two different techniques of execution are noticed: the dress and the remaining elements of still life are resolved with a very tight brushstroke, especially in the treatment of the cape, while the head and hand appear treated with very loose brushstrokes, probably retouches by Velázquez from 1640, with a more evolved technique.
In 1628 the Flemish painter and diplomat Peter Paul Rubens arrived in Madrid to carry out diplomatic negotiations and remained in the city for almost a year. He is known to have painted around ten portraits of the royal family, most of which have been lost. He also copied several works from the king’s painting collection, especially those by Tiziano. Velázquez must have seen him paint the real portraits and copies of Tiziano, and this became a great experience as he was able to study the work by the two painters who would have the most influence on his own work. Together with Rubens, Velázquez visited the painting collections at El Escorial, while the Flemish master stimulated him to travel to Italy. It is almost certain that Rubens promoted Velázquez’s first trip to Italy, since shortly after leaving the Spanish court in May 1629, Velázquez obtained permission to make his trip. According to the Italian representatives in Spain, this trip was to complete his studies.
Thanks to a license from his royal patron, Velázquez was able to realize the dream of every artist of his time: to go to Italy. On July 22, 1629, he was granted two years’ salary, 480 ducats, for the trip, plus another 400 ducats from the payment of several paintings. Velázquez embarked in Barcelona, in August 1629.
This trip to Italy ended up to be decisive in influencing his painting style and technique. As Velázquez was the painter of the king of Spain, all doors were opened, allowing him to contemplate works that were only available to the most privileged. In Venice he copied works by Tintoretto. In Ferrara he would encounter Giorgione‘s painting. In Cento, he became interested in learning about Guercino‘s work. In Rome, Cardinal Francesco Barberini gave him access to the Vatican rooms, where he dedicated many days to copying the frescoes by Michelangelo and Raphael. He then moved to Villa Medici, on the outskirts of Rome, where he copied his collection of classical sculpture. He not only studied the ancient masters; at that time the great baroque artists were active in Rome. The assimilation of Italian art into Velázquez’s style is seen in The Forge of Vulcan and Joseph’s Tunic, both canvases painted in 1630 on his own initiative without any commission involved. In The Forge of Vulcan, although elements from the Sevillian period persist, there is an important break with his previous painting. We can appreciate some of these changes in the spatial treatment: the transition to the background is smooth and the interval between figures is measured. Also in the brush strokes: previously Velázquez had painted in layers of opaque paint, now he was using a very light primer, so that the brush stroke appeared fluid and the highlights produced surprising effects between the illuminated areas and the shadows.
La fragua de Vulcano (The Forge of Vulcan), oil on canvas, by Diego Velázquez, 1630, 223 × 290 cm (Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain). This canvas was painted in Rome during Velázquez’s first trip to Italy. The motif is taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses [4, 171-176], and reflects the moment when Apollo, “the Sun god that sees all”, reveals to Vulcan the adultery of his wife Venus with Mars, of which he was the first to know. The blacksmith Vulcan, the offended husband, upon receiving the news, lost both “his self-control and the work that he was doing.” The theme had little iconographic tradition. Velázquez made extensive use of his studies on classical statuary, as a kind of learning exercise, modifying the points of view and arranging the figures as in a frieze while, with the naturalistic style learned in Seville, he arranged the still life objects, especially those located above the fireplace, paying attention to the quality of their surfaces. In the gloom of the workshop, illuminated by the fireplace and with a predominance of earthy colors, the solar god bursts in, radiating light from his head and orange-yellow cloak that, with the fragment of blue sky behind him, animate the composition. The shadows model the bodies, but with a diffuse light that nuances the unlit areas, perhaps following the example of Guido Reni. The celestial and underground worlds, represented by Apollo and Vulcan, are also manifested differently in the study of their naked bodies. The blonde Apollo, crowned with laurel as the god of poetry, exhibits an adolescent nude, with delicate forms and white flesh, apparently fragile but hard like ancient marble. No idealization, however, is seen in the bodies of Vulcan and the Cyclops, hardened by hard work, which is reflected in their tight flesh and tense muscles; they stop their work, looking at the solar god in astonishment. Even though they are academic nudes, resembling classical statuary, they have been reinterpreted by the study of live models, which have also shown the faces of ordinary beings. Velázquez also managed to create the effect of volume and morbidity of the flesh through the play of light and shadow.
Estudio para la cabeza de Apolo (Study for the head of Apollo), oil on canvas, by Diego Velázquez, 1630, 36 x 25 cm (Private collection, New York, United States of America).
In The Forge of Vulcan (1630), Velázquez took a trivial anecdote, the moment in which Apollo tells Vulcan of the infidelity of his wife Venus, to the astonishment of the blacksmith-god and his assistants. This last canvas is considered a pair with another based on a biblical theme, Joseph’s Tunic (1630). Here, Jacob’s evil sons make him believe; by showing him a bloody tunic, that Joseph, his favorite, has been devoured by wild beasts. The intention uniting both canvases is more subtle than a simple similarity in their plots or intended message: it may be the power of the word (of Apollo or of Jacob’s sons) and their influence and superiority over the action; that is, to a certain extent, the superiority of art over practice, a Neoplatonic idea that was to inform the last and most famous paintings by Velázquez, Las Meninas and Las Hilanderas.
La túnica de José (Joseph’s Tunic), oil on canvas, by Diego Velázquez, 1630, 223 × 250 cm (Monasterio de El Escorial, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain). The theme of the painting comes from a passage in the Old Testament, when Jacob’s sons appear before their father to tell him that their favorite son, Joseph, has died attacked by wolves. Joseph’s brothers, a little tired of the powerful dreams that their brother continually had, decided to sell him to some Egyptian merchants to get him out of their way. Later, they show their father Joseph’s clothes, which they had previously stained with lamb’s blood, to give truth to their pledge. Jacob is here represented just at the moment he receives the news, as he suddenly stands up from his chair, raising his arms, with a gesture of surprise at the news of the death of his favorite son. The dog, introduced into the painting by Velázquez, barks at those suspected of lying, perhaps realizing the deception that Jacob isn’t able to appreciate. In this painting, it seems that Velázquez has abandoned chiaroscuro, and a clear light invades the room where the event takes place. Likewise, the colors (blue, orange, yellow) are greatly influenced by Venetian artists, either from the paintings that were available in the royal collection or from those that Velázquez was able to see on his trip to the Italian peninsula, where he stopped in Venice and Rome. Two of the figures, one from the back and the other from the side, expose their nude chests, showing us their anatomy, their musculature, a tendency to undress the figures, which we already observed in The Triumph of Bacchus or The Forge of Vulcan. The reference to Michelangelo is inevitable. Little by little Velázquez “looses his wrist”, painting in a less detailed way than in his early works, although he never lose his photographic realism. Depth also interested him and we see how he makes sure we are able to see the landscape among the people who are part of the scene. The small dog that appears in the painting is very curious and some scholars propose that it was a recommendation from Peter Paul Rubens, who told Velázquez that in this way the painting gains in elegance. This wasn’t the only time that Velázquez uses this figure, since we also see it in later works such as Las Meninas.
In Rome he also painted two small landscapes in the garden of Villa Medici: View of the Garden of the Villa Medici in Rome and View of the garden of the Villa Medici in Rome with the statue of Ariadne (both ca. 1630). Velázquez’s sketching technique in both is almost ‘impressionistic’, that is loose. It seems as if he had tried to capture two fleeting “impressions” in the way that Claude Monet would do two centuries later. The style of these paintings has frequently been compared to the Roman landscapes that the French Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot painted in the 19th century. The novelty of these landscapes lays not so much in their subjects as in their execution. Landscape studies taken from life were a rare practice, used only by a few Dutch artists established in Rome.
Vista del jardín dela Villa Médici en Roma (View of the Garden of the Villa Medici in Rome), oil on canvas, by Diego Velázquez, 1630, 44.5 × 38.5 cm (Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain). The painting shows the view of a garden of the Villa Medici in Rome, with a Serlian opening in the background and some characters who seem to be observing something, perhaps the repair that this opening is undergoing and that we can see in the scaffolding that covers it. But perhaps the most important thing about this painting is the technique used by Velázquez. Landscape painting was considered a minor genre, in accordance with the doctrine of the “hierarchy of genres” that placed history painting at the top. The novelty of the painting lies in the fact that Velázquez placed the easel directly outside to paint a landscape in oil, something that only Dutch artists established in Rome had done at that time, and in quick studies always done in pencil, pen or gouache. It is precisely this study from nature of a landscape, the lightness of its brushstroke where the outlines of shapes or figures are barely outlined, and the fact that it was painted in “plein air*” (painting in “outdoors”), which made these paintings (the other being the one pictured below) stand out. They have sometimes been linked to the paintings achieved by the impressionists two centuries later.
Vista del jardín de la Villa Medici de Roma con la estatua de Ariadna (View of the garden of the Villa Medici in Rome with the statue of Ariadne), oil on canvas, by Diego Velázquez, 1630, 44.5 × 38.5 cm (Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain). The canvas represents a garden with a Serlian opening that covers one of the copies of the Hellenistic sculpture of the sleeping Ariadne. The Serlian acts as a balcony open to a landscape in which we can see cypresses, illuminated with a midday sun that sneaks through the leafy crowns of the garden trees, shading with flashes of intense light the vaporous silhouettes of some characters, so loosely drawn that they seem translucent. The main novelty of the canvas lies in its immediacy, as Velázquez painted it from life with light brushstrokes, using directly oil and in an outdoor setting.
View from the Farnese Gardens, oil on paper mounted on canvas, by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, 1826 (The Phillips Collection, Washington DC., United States of America).
Velázquez remained in the Eternal City until the autumn of 1630, and returned to Madrid via Naples, where he made the portrait of Mary of Austria, Queen of Hungary (1630). There he was able to meet José de Ribera, who was in his prime. During his one-year stay in Rome, in addition to painting these works (in which he was influenced by Guido Reni and Guercino‘s carmines, blues and blacks), he realized his own worth and talent, and returned to the court of Spain in January 1631, confident about his faculties, with a much freer technique and a broader color palette.
María de Austria, Reina de Hungría (Mary of Austria, Queen of Hungary), oil on canvas, by Diego Velázquez, 1630, 59.5 x 45.5 cm (Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain). Mary of Austria was sister of king Philip IV of Spain. During his brother’s reign, María married Ferdinand III of Habsburg, who was king of Hungary and Bohemia and who would later be emperor of Germany. This is a very accomplished portrait in which Velázquez perfectly captured the psychology of the future empress. As he had been doing in previous portraits, Velázquez painted on a neutral background to highlight the figure of the sitter. Everything is treated with great quality: the greenish suit, the gray neck and especially the queen’s hair, painted with great care and meticulous detail. In 1630, in his way back to Spain from Italy, Velázquez spent the last three months of that year in Naples and it was during this stay when he made the portrait of Mary, still an infanta since her marriage to Ferdinand had not yet taken place. The purpose of this portrait was to bring it with him to Spain and give it to king Philip IV as a souvenir from her sister, whom he would never see again.
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*En plein air: (from French, meaning ‘outdoors’). The term refers to the act of painting outdoors. This method contrasts with studio painting or academicism which aim to represent a predetermined look. The theory of ‘En plein air‘ painting is credited to French painter Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (1750–1819), first explained in a treatise entitled Reflections and Advice to a Student on Painting, Particularly on Landscape (1800), where he developed the concept of “landscape portrait” by which the artist paints directly onto canvas placed in situ within the landscape.
The Artistic Adventure of Mankind 