Pictures Every Child Should Know Part 24

XLI

VELASQUEZ (DIEGO RODRIGUEZ DE SILVA)

(p.r.o.nounced Vay-lahs'keth) _Castilian School_ 1599-1669 _Pupil of Herrera_

It is pretty difficult to find out why a man was named so-and-so in the days of the early Italian and Spanish painters. More likely than not they would be called after the master to whom they had been first apprenticed; or after their trade; after the town from which they came, and rarely because their father had had the name before them. In Velasquez's case, he was named after his mother.

No one seemed to be certain what to call him, but he generally wrote his name "Diego de Silva Velasquez." His father was Rodriguez de Silva, a lawyer, but in calling the boy Velasquez the family followed a universal Spanish custom of naming children after their mothers.

Little Velasquez was well taught in his childhood; he studied many languages and philosophy, for he was intended to be a lawyer or something learned, anything but a painter. The disappointment of parents in those days, when they found a child was likely to become an artist is touching.

Despite his equipment for a useful life, according to the ideas of his parents, this little chap was bound to become nothing but a maker of pictures.

Herrera was a bad-tempered master and little Velasquez could not get on with him, so after a year of harsh treatment, he went to another master, Pacheco, but by that time he had learned a secret that was to help make his work great. Herrera had taught him to use a brush with very long bristles, which had the effect of spreading the paint, making it look as if his "colours had floated upon the canvas," in a way that was the "despair of those who came after him."

Velasquez was born in Seville at a time when about all the art of the world was Italian or German; thus he became the creator of a new school of painting.

He stayed five years in Pacheco's studio and pupil and master became very fond of each other. Pacheco was not a great master--not so good as Herrera--but he was easy to get on with, and knew a good deal about painting, so that as Velasquez had the genius, he was as well placed as he needed to be.

In Pacheco's studio there was a peasant boy whose face was very mobile, showed every pa.s.sing feeling; and Velasquez used to make him laugh and weep, till, surprising some good expression, he would quickly sketch him. With this excellent model, Velasquez did a surprising amount of good work.

Spain had just then conquered the far-off provinces of Mexico and Peru, and was continually receiving from its newly got lands much valuable merchandise. Rapidly growing rich, this Latin country loved art and all things beautiful, so its money was bound to be spent freely in such ways. Madrid had been made its capital, and at that time there were few fine pictures to be found there. The Moors who had conquered Spain had forbidden picture making, because it was contrary to their religion to represent the human figure, or even the figures of birds and beasts. Then the Inquisition had hindered art by its rules, one of which was that the Virgin Mary should always be painted with her feet covered; another, that all saints should be beardless. There were many more exactions.

While cathedrals were being built elsewhere, the Moors had been in control of Spanish lands, so that no cathedral had been built there, and when Velasquez came upon the scene the time of great cathedral building was past. It had ceased to be the fas.h.i.+on. Although there had been such painters as Beneguette, Morales, Navarrette, and Ribera, all Spanish and of considerable genius, they had been too badly handicapped to make painting a great art in Spain. When Madrid became the capital of Spain, it had no unusual buildings, unless it was an old fortress of the Moors, the Alcazar, Caesar's house, but the nation was buying paintings from Italy, and it began to beautify Madrid, which had the advantage of the former Moorish luxury and art, very beautiful, though not pictorial.

In Madrid, then, there seemed to be great opportunity for a fine artist like Velasquez, and his master urged him to go there and try his fortune. So he set out on mule-back, attended by his slave, but unless he could get the ear of the king, it was useless for him to seek advancement in Madrid. Without the king as patron at that time, an artist could not accomplish much. After trying again and again, Velasquez had to return to his old master, without having seen the king; but after a time a picture of his was seen by Philip IV., and he was so much pleased with it that he summoned the artist. Through his minister, Olivares, he offered him $113.40 in gold (fifty ducats) to pay his return expenses. The next year he gave him $680.40 to move his family to Madrid.

At last the artist had found a place in the rich city, and he went to live at the court where the warmest friends.h.i.+p grew between him and the king. The latter was an author and something of a painter, so that they loved the same things. This friends.h.i.+p lasted all their lives, and they were together most of the time, the king always being found, in Velasquez's studio in the palace when his duties did not call him elsewhere. During the many many years--nearly thirty-seven--that Velasquez lived with Philip IV. he employed himself in painting the scenes at court. Thus he became the pictorial historian of the Spanish capital. He was a man of good disposition, kindly and generous in conduct and in feeling, so that he was always in the midst of friends and well-wishers.

Philip IV. was indeed a n.o.ble companion, but he was not a gay one, being known as the king who never laughed--or at least whose laughter was so rare, the few times he did laugh became historic. One would expect this serious and depressing atmosphere to have had an effect upon a painter's art; but it chanced that Rubens visited Spain, and there, Velasquez being the one famous artist, it was natural they should become interested in each other. Rubens told Velasquez of the wonders of Italian painting, till the Spaniard could think of nothing else, and finally he begged Philip to let him journey to Italy that he might see some of those wonders for himself. The request made the king unhappy at first, but at last he gave his consent and Velasquez set out for Italy. The king gave him money and letters of introduction, and he went in company with the Marquis of Spinola.

After Velasquez had stayed eighteen months in Italy, Philip began to long for his friend and sent for him to return. He came back full of the stories of brilliant Italy, and charmed the king completely.

There is as absurd a story of Velasquez's perfection in painting as that of Raphael's, whose portrait of the pope, left upon the terrace to dry, imposed upon pa.s.sers by. It is said of Velasquez's work that when he had painted an admiral whom the king had ordered to sea, and left it exposed in his studio, the king, entering, thought it was the admiral himself, and angrily inquired why he had not put to sea according to orders. On the face of them these stories are false, but they serve to suggest the perfection of these artists' paintings.

Philip, being a melancholy man, had his court full of jesters, poor misshapen creatures--dwarfs and hunchbacks--who were supposed to appear "funny," and Velasquez, as court painter, painted those whom he continually saw about him, who formed the court family. Thus we have pictures of strange groups--dwarfs, little princesses, dressed precisely as the elders were dressed, favourite dogs, and Velasquez himself at his easel.

In 1618, while still with his master, Pacheco, he had married the master's daughter, a big, portly woman. Before he left Seville he bad two daughters.

These were all the children he had, although he painted a picture of "Velasquez's Family" which includes a great number of people. The figures in that painting are the children of his daughter, not his own; and this may account for one biographer's statement that the artist had "seven children." He was devoted to and happy in his family of children and grandchildren.

He did not grow rich, but received regularly during his life in Madrid, twenty gold ducats ($45.36) a month to live upon, and besides this his medical attendance, lodging, and additional payment for every picture. The one which brought him this good fortune was an equestrian portrait of Philip; first uncovered on the steps of San Felipe. Everywhere the people were delighted with it, poets sung of it, and the king declared no other should ever paint his portrait. This picture has long since disappeared.

In 1627 Velasquez won the prize for a picture representing the expulsion of the Moors from Spain and was rewarded by "being appointed gentleman usher. To this was shortly afterward added a daily allowance of twelve reals--the same amount which was allowed to court barbers--and ninety gold ducats ($204.12) a year for dress, which was also paid to the dwarfs, buffoons, and players about the king's person--truly a curious estimate of talent at the court of Spain."

The record of Philip IV. with unpleasing, even degenerate characters, about him, is brightened by the thought of his loyalty to his court painter and life-long friend. When the king's favourites fell, those who had been the friends of Velasquez, the artist loyally remained their friend in adversity as he had been while they were powerful. This constancy, even to the royal enemies, was never resented by Philip. He honoured the faithfulness of his artist, even as he himself was faithful in this friends.h.i.+p. Philip's court was such that there was little to paint that was enn.o.bling, and so Velasquez lacked the inspiration of such surroundings as the Italian painters had.

Philip IV. was hail-fellow-well-met with his stablemen, his huntsmen, his cooks, and yet he seems to have had no sense of humour, was long faced and forbidding to look at, and despite his strange habits considered himself the most mighty and haughty man in the world. He felt himself free to behave as he chose, because he was Philip of Spain; and he chose to do a great many absurd and outrageous things. In all Philip's portraits, painted by Velasquez, he wears a stiff white linen collar of his own invention, and he was so proud of this that he celebrated it by a festival. He went in procession to church to thank G.o.d for the wonderful blessing of the _Golilla_--the name of his collar. This unsightly thing became the fas.h.i.+on, and all portraits of men of that time were painted with it. "In regard to the wonderful structure of Philip's moustaches it is said, that, to preserve their form they were encased during the night in perfumed leather covers called _bigoteras_." Such absurdities in a king, who had the responsibilities of a nation upon him, seem incredible.

Velasquez made in all three journeys to Italy, and the last one was on a mission for the king, which was much to the latter's credit. Philip had determined to have a fine art gallery in Madrid, for Spain had by this time many pictures, but no statuary; so he commissioned his painter to buy whatever he thought well of and _could_ buy, in Italy. Hence the artist set off again with his slave--the same one with whom he had journeyed to Madrid so long before. His name was Pareja, and his master had already made an excellent artist of him.

They went to Genoa, thence to the great art-centres of Italy, were received everywhere with honour, and the artist bought wisely.

Velasquez did not care for Raphael's paintings as much as for t.i.tian's, and he said so to Salvator Rosa, an honoured painter in Italy.

While in Rome Velasquez painted the pope, also his own slave, Pareja.

When he returned to Spain he took with him three hundred statues, but a large number of them were nude, and the Spanish court, not over particular about most things, was very particular about naked statues, so that after Philip's death, they nearly all disappeared. After his return, and after the queen had died and Philip had married again, Velasquez was made quartermaster-general, no easy post but not without honour, though it interfered with his picture painting a good deal. He had to look after the comfort of all the court, and to see that the apartments it occupied, at home or when it visited, were suitable.

"Even the powerful king of Spain could not make his favourite a belted knight without a commission to inquire into the purity of his lineage on both sides of the house. Fortunately, the pedigree could bear scrutiny, as for generations the family was found free from all taint of heresy, from all trace of Jewish or Moorish blood, and from contamination from trade or commerce. The difficulty connected with the fact that he was a painter was got over by his being painter to the king and by the declaration that he did not sell his pictures."

The red Cross of Santiago conferred upon him by Philip, made Velasquez a knight and freed him also from the rulings of the Inquisition, which directed so largely what artists could and could not do. Thus it is that we come to have certain great pictures from Velasquez's brush which could not otherwise have been painted.

This action of the king, setting free the artist, made two schools of art, of which the court painter represented one; and Murillo the other, under the command of the Church. Although not so rich perhaps as Raphael, Velasquez lived and died in plenty, while Murillo, the artist of the Church of Rome, was a poverty-stricken man.

Finally, while in the midst of honours, and fulfilling his official duty to the court of Spain, Velasquez contracted the disease which killed him. The Infanta, Maria Theresa, was to wed Louis XIV., and the ceremony was to take place on a swampy little island called the Island of Pheasants. There he went to decorate a pavilion and other places of display. He became ill with a fever and died soon after he returned to Madrid.

He made his wife, his old master Pacheco's daughter, his executor, and was buried in the church of San Juan, in the vault of Fuensalida; but within a week his devoted wife was dead, and in eight days' time she was buried beside him.

He left his affairs--accounts between him and the court--badly entangled, and it was many years before they were straightened out. His many deeds of kindness lived after him. He made of his slave a good artist and a devoted friend, and by his efforts the slave became a freedman. The story of his kindly help to Murillo when that exquisite painter came, unknown and friendless to Madrid, has already been told.

The Church where Velasquez was buried was destroyed by the French in 1811, and all trace of the resting place of the great Spanish artist is forever lost to us.

He is called not only "painter to the king," but "king of painters."

PLATE--EQUESTRIAN PORTRAIT OF DON BALTHASAR CARLOS.

Philip of Spain had long prayed for a son and when at last one was granted him his pride in his young heir was unbounded. The little Don Carlos was not unworthy, for he was a cheerful, hearty boy, trained to horsemans.h.i.+p, from his fourth year, for his father was a noted rider and had the best instructors for his son. The prince was a brave hunter too and we are told that he shot a wild boar when he was but nine years of age. In this portrait which is in the Museo del Prado he is six years old, and it was neither the first nor the last that Velasquez made of him. It was one of the court painter's chief duties to see that the heir to the throne was placed upon canvas at every stage of his career, and he painted him from two years of age till his lamented death at sixteen.

The young prince wears in this picture a green velvet jacket with white sleeves and his scarf is crimson embroidered with gold. The lively pony is a light chestnut and the foreshortening of its body must be noticed. The steady grave eyes of the lad are gazing far ahead as they would naturally be if he were riding rapidly, but his princely dignity is shown in his firm seat in the saddle and his manner of holding his marshal's bat?n.

The great art of the painter is also shown in the way he subordinates the landscape to the figure. He will not allow even a tree to come near the young horseman, but brings his young activity into vivid contrast with the calm peacefulness of the distant view.

With the death of Don Carlos the downfall of his father's dynasty was a.s.sured, though for a time his little sister, the Infanta Maria Theresa, was upheld as the heiress. She married Louis XIV. and had a weary time of it in France. Velasquez painted her picture too, in the grown up dress of the children of that day. It is in the Vienna Gallery. Among his best known pictures are "The Surrender of Breda,"

"Alessandro del Borro," and "Philip IV."

XLII

PAUL VERONESE (PAOLO CAGLIARI)

(p.r.o.nounced Vay-ro-nay'zay and pah'o-lah cal-ee-ah'ree) _Venetian School_ 1528-1588 _Pupil of t.i.tian_