Velázquez

At the heart of the Spanish Golden Age emerges the masterful figure of Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660), an artist whose pictorial genius transcends the conventions of his time to achieve a striking modernity. Official painter to the court of Philip IV from 1623, Velázquez developed a visual language of unprecedented psychological depth, where technical mastery serves a human truth that shines through both in his royal portraits and in his representations of jesters and ordinary men. His two Italian sojourns refined his palette and technique, culminating in works such as “Las Meninas” (1656), a true meditation on representation and gaze that places the viewer at the center of a complex interplay of mirrors and perspectives. Posterity would recognize in him not only the visual chronicler of an imperial Spain in decline, but also the inventor of a painting of the moment, where atmosphere and light become the true subjects of a body of work that would profoundly influence Manet, the Impressionists, and all of modern painting.

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