Diego Velázquez was a genius and the way that I discovered this was by attempting to duplicate his portrait of Pablo de Valladolid. Pablo was a jester in the court of Spanish King Philip IV in the 1600's, Velázquez the court painter. One of the remarkable things about the actual 6 ft tall, full body portrait is the fact that there is not an ornate background which allows the man, dressed completely in black, to jump off the canvas. And, of course, there is his mastery of human expression. The most difficult part of this painting for me was the eyes. Would Pablo and Diego look at this and see Pablo?
No comments:
Post a Comment