BIOGRAPHY
Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez was a prolific Spanish Baroque painter who was born in 1599. The waning age of the Late Renaissance became the turning point for the rise of a new art movement so flamboyant and grotesque in its dramatic effects; it would be later known as the Baroque period. A native of Seville, he began painting at a tender age of 20 and one of his works was The Water Carrier of Seville, an evidence of his superb skill in painting intense and dramatic realism. The young genius had demonstrated his absolute talent and mastery in using pigments to illustrate natural themes that reflect the works of the Renaissance masters; but drawn with such a dramatic intensity that it made the figures looked almost as if they were real people instead of subjects of the paintings. He painted many religious figures at the same time revealed his fascination with Caravaggio’s paintings which scholars had noted that he once attempted to study the style of his paintings (Getlein 2013, p. 397; Kleiner 2012, p. 578; Sayre 2012, p. 162). His career as court painter materialized when the King Philip IV of Spain noticed his superb craftsmanship and delicate execution of imagery throughout his paintings.
Portrait of Queen Mariana (c.1656, Oil on Canvas)
Velazquez illustrated the Queen Mariana of Austria as a young woman wearing a simple white dress while her elaborate headdress adorned with rows of gleaming white pearls, braids, and a diaphanous white cloth covered her head. Her face was shown as quite the stoic, serious, unhappy woman looking at the spectators smugly as if she views them as inferior compared to her. Unlike Velazquez’ other paintings, this allows the viewers’ eye to focus only on one person; thereby allowing an intensive study of the garments, the appearance, as well as the jewelry from the Baroque period.
Starting from the hair and the face, the implied lines created by the pigments remained steady and relaxed; however, as it goes from the white head covering down to the white dress she wore, the lines started to get wild due to the combination of short fast brushstrokes, dabs of white and grey paints, and long wavy lines to emphasize the contours created by the design of her hair. The rogue applied to her face was also created by continuously applying dabs of mixed red and white paint to present an alabaster face with pink cheeks. Chiaroscuro was evident only on the face and the hair. For instance, the artist successfully depicted the intricate braids on her head by contrasting light and dark pigments such as dark brown, black, golden ochre, and auburn. The divisions of the braiding were arranged in accordance to which area receives more light. The portrait is balanced; the figure is located at the center part of the panel. The remaining colors indicated on the dress remains flat and monochromatic; separated only with darker tints of black and golden ochre pigments. The background remains neutral to avoid the corruption of the overly-designed image. In addition, there was also an implied triangular shape formed by the figure; beginning from the top of the head, the narrow point of the triangle goes wider and wider as it reaches the ballooning braided hair and the shoulders. Further linear analysis reveals that the picture is composed of straight, relaxed lines originating from the central section of the face, the outlines of the hair, and the dress. The artist emphasized drama and intense realism by the liberal application of white pigments to create an illusion of haziness especially on her face. His use of white pigments enabled the successful portrayal of the queen as a woman with a delicate doll-shaped face, soft features, and serene facial expression as if she was an unworldly being with an incomparable beauty to anyone else in the world. Light also played an important part in the painting. For instance, the light source was shown shining above the face; however, the tilt illustrates the mellow brightness of the hue, soft texture, emphasized the dramatic illusion of softness and invisible lines of the three-dimensional form of her body denotes that the value of colors made it possible for the artist to portray the portrait of the queen as realistic as possible.
REFERENCES
Getlein, M. (2013). Living with Art. 10th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kleiner, F.S. (2012). Gardner's Art through the Ages: The Western Perspective. Vol. 2. 14th Ed. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage.
Sayre, H.M. (2012). A World of Art. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
