Princess from the paintings of Velasquez. Riddles of the painting by Velasquez "Las Meninas"

Plot

This is Velázquez's most famous painting. Menyns are ladies-in-waiting, servants of kings, in other words. It seems that everyone is looking at us. But in fact, everyone is looking at the king and queen, whose portrait is painted by the artist - we see their faces in the reflection in the mirror on the wall.

Infanta Margherita and her ladies-in-waiting ran into the room where Philip IV and his wife Marianna were posing for a portrait. We, the spectators, see children, as well as dwarfs and other servants, from the position of monarchs. And behind the still life is Velasquez himself. He acts here as a servant of the king, but at the same time we intuitively understand that he is the director of this scene, its organizing force.

The idea of ​​"Menin", for all its elegance, is not new. Two centuries before Velasquez, a similar move (with a reflection of some heroes) was invented by Jan van Eyck, the author of "".

The painting "Velasquez" inspired many subsequent artists. Pablo Picasso, with his characteristic passion, wrote 58 variations on the theme "Menin".

One of Picasso's variations on the Menin theme. 1957. (wikipedia.org)

Marianne of Austria is the second wife of Philip IV. At the time of the marriage, she was 15 years old, and he was over forty. In addition, the bride was the niece of the groom. The monarch took such a step after the death of his only son (from his first marriage) and heir to the throne, Balthazar Carlos, whose bride was originally Marianna.

Her children were born stillborn or died shortly after birth. After 12 years of marriage, only daughter Margarita was only child surviving.

A healthy, beautiful infanta in the picture is an expression of hope for a future heir. In the image of a 5-year-old girl, Velazquez embodies the idea of ​​family happiness and wealth.

Portrait of Philip IV, 1656. (wikipedia.org)

However, in subsequent years, Charles II - last hope Philip IV - born disabled. He became the last of the Habsburgs on the Spanish throne. After his death, the War of the Spanish Succession broke out, bringing the Bourbons to power in the country.

The fate of the artist

Velázquez's first paintings were in the bodegones genre. These are scenes from life. ordinary people. Over time, everyday elements were combined on canvases with biblical parables - mythological and life merged. Pictures cease to be observations, they begin to convey new meanings, for the solution of which a kind of key is needed. In those days, to portray, for example, Bacchus surrounded by peasants who feast no worse than the gods, was audacity. But Velazquez was bold in his experiments, he knew how to combine dissimilar motifs so that together they looked natural.

"Triumph of Bacchus". (wikipedia.org)

The life of the artist changed in 1623. He became the court painter of Philip IV. And this meant that now his main models are the monarch, his family and court. Velazquez, of course, used, as required by the canons, a sublime pictorial language. But at the same time, he maintained the veracity of the image, did not avoid details that another artist would prefer to hide.

This is partly why Velasquez was called the artist of truth. And partly also for who he wrote, in addition to representatives high society. These were, for example, jesters, dwarfs - by the standards of the 17th century, second-class people. But in the paintings of Velasquez, they are written out as carefully as the dukes.

• The great artist, one of the most prominent representatives of the "Golden Age" of Spanish painting, Diego Velasquez was born in a poor Jewish family in 1599 and was able to rise to the title of court painter under King Philip IV. And also became his ... official bed-keeper! That is, a person who kept order in the royal bedroom, including the cleanliness of the chamber pots of the royal person. In addition, Velasquez helped the king choose paintings for his personal collection. A significant part of these paintings became the basis of the collection. National Museum Prado.

• One of his main works - Las Meninas - Velasquez created four years before his death, in 1656. By that time, he had served at the king's court for 33 years and was considered the artist closest to the monarch. The canvas struck the imagination primarily with its scope - 3.2 × 2.74 meters.

• The legendary painting changed its name three times. Initially, she had a long descriptive title - "Portrait of the Empress with her ladies-in-waiting and dwarfs." In the 18th century, it was renamed the "King's Family". And only in the 19th century, during the next inventory with light hand the caretaker of the Prado gallery began to be called Las Meninas, which is translated from Spanish as “maids of honor”, ​​and in Russian interpretation it sounds like “Menins”.

• The picture is full of secrets and is not immediately revealed to the viewer. At first glance, it seems that central figure here is the 5-year-old Infanta Margarita (in 10 years she will become the Empress of the Holy Roman Empire), but on the canvas there are figures and more weighty. In the background, the main visitors of the artist's studio are reflected in the mirror - the Queen and the King, that is, Philip IV himself with his wife Marianne. Their faces are blurred not by chance, as art critics say - in this way, Velasquez wanted to emphasize that even monarchs have no power over the power of his work. The main optical “device” used by the artist is also connected with this crowned couple: the look in the picture is directed at the monarchs, that is, over the viewer himself. In this way, an amazing effect of presence is created - the visitor of the Prado National Museum is, as it were, transferred directly to Velazquez's workshop.

• In the picture, the infanta is surrounded by ladies-in-waiting, one of whom brings water to her: Margarita herself, according to etiquette, had no right to fill her glass. Next to her (to the right of the viewer) is her teacher - a woman suffering from dwarfism. She enjoyed incredible respect at the court for her work, and in the story she demonstrates the award granted to her by the king. A similar child plays with the Infanta's favorite mastiff - and this, by the way, suggests that the Spanish court was inclusive, and people with rare diseases were allowed to violate etiquette in many ways.

• It is also curious that, next to the royal family, Velasquez dared to portray himself, however, very young: after all, at the time of working on the canvas, he was already 57 years old.

• Philip IV liked the painting so much that he ordered to hang it in his office. It must be admitted that the Spanish king had an excellent flair for art: many centuries later, the most prominent artists repeatedly returned to Diego Velasquez's Meninas and tried to rethink his work. One of the great admirers of the painting was Pablo Picasso, who in the 1950s produced a whole series of canvases called Las Meninas. According to Velazquez. Is this not true recognition of talent?

/ / Description of the painting by Diego Velazquez “Las Meninas”

Diego Velazquez (06/06/1599 - 10/06/1660) - Spanish painter of the 17th century. He worked in the era of the Spanish Baroque, and was a shining example artist of the Madrid School. He painted historical, religious and mythological subjects. The most famous among them are "Adoration of the Magi", "Triumph of Bacchus, or Drunkards", "Surrender of Breda", "Aesop" and others. Velasquez succeeded in portrait painting. As a court painter, he painted portraits of noble and august persons. Among them is the painting "Menin (maid of honor)".

Las Meninas, or The Family of Philip IV, written in 1656. This is one of the most famous paintings Velasquez. A rather interesting plot of the picture, combined with the high skill of the artist, puts it among his best works.

The dimensions of this canvas are significant - 318? 276 cm. In addition, the space in the picture is visually expanded: the room in which the action takes place is spacious, in the background wall there is an open door. In the opening you can see a staircase with a man standing on it in dark clothes. Thus, additional space opens up.

Although the name of the painting indicates the maid of honor, in the center of the canvas is the five-year-old Infanta Margarita, the only child of the royal couple of Spain at that time. The little girl carries herself upright, even regally. Her body is wrapped in fluffy dress. On either side of the infanta are two ladies-in-waiting (meninas). These are representatives of the most noble families. The lady-in-waiting on the right is preparing to take a deep curtsey. The lady-in-waiting on the left kneels and gives the princess a jug. The baby, without looking, casually, as it should be for a princess, takes a jug. A child who has learned the lessons of upbringing behaves with royal dignity and a sense of his own importance.

To the right of the infanta is a dwarf and a jester who is trying to kick a sleepy dog, depicted in the foreground, with his foot. In the background, to the right of the open door, are the Infanta's companion and her guard. On the left side of the doorway, Velasquez depicted himself with a brush, behind an easel. Obviously, he painted a portrait of King Philip IV and his wife Marianne, as they are reflected in the mirror in the background.

Not in the picture bright colors, its tones are soft, light silvery. The background of the picture is darkened, its image, as in a haze, loses its distinctness. The figures in the center and in the foreground are depicted in detail. So, the outfit of the princess is carefully written out.

Looking at the picture up close, you can see that Velasquez used several techniques. In his work on faces, he applied the glazing technique, when iridescent colors are achieved by applying translucent paints to the base color. With the smallest strokes, the artist depicted the lace and velvet of Princess Margaret's dress. It is brightly lit, and there is a softness of pastel in the image of other characters. The picture gives the impression of airiness and light. She involuntarily attracts the eyes of visitors to the museum in the Prado.

Meninas (or family of Philip IV) - Diego Velazquez. 1656. Oil on canvas. 318 x 276 cm

The picture impresses with its scale and versatility. Firstly, this is a very large canvas, and secondly, several workshops were used at once to expand the space. artistic techniques. The artist placed the characters in a spacious room, in the background of which there is a door with a gentleman in black clothes standing on the illuminated steps. This immediately indicates the presence of another space outside the room, visually expanding its dimensions, depriving it of two-dimensionality.

The whole image is slightly shifted to the side due to the canvas facing us with the back side. Slightly pulling back, the artist stands in front of the canvas - this is Velazquez himself. They paint a picture, but not the one that we see in front of us, since the main characters are facing us. It's already three different plans. But this was not enough for the master, and he added a mirror, which reflects the royal couple - King Philip IV of Spain and his wife Marianna. They look with love at their only child at that time - Infanta Margarita.

Although the painting is called Las Meninas, that is, ladies-in-waiting at the Spanish royal court, the center of the image is a little princess, the hope of the whole family of the Spanish Habsburgs at that time. Five-year-old Margarita is calm, self-confident and even arrogant beyond her age. Without the slightest excitement and change in facial expression, she looks at those around her, and her tiny baby body is literally shackled in the hard shell of a magnificent court toilet. She is not embarrassed noble ladies- her meninas - squatting in front of her in a deep bow, according to the severe etiquette adopted at the Spanish court. She is not even interested in the palace dwarf and the jester who put his foot on the one lying in the foreground. big dog. This little girl carries herself with all possible grandeur, personifying the centuries-old Spanish monarchy.

The picture is painted in pleasant silvery tones without flashy colors. The background of the room seems to dissolve in a light grayish haze, but all the details of the complex outfit of little Margarita are written out with the smallest details. The artist did not forget himself. Before us appears an imposing middle-aged man, with lush curly locks, in black silk clothes and with a cross of Sant'Iago on his chest. Because of this distinction, which only a full-blooded Spaniard could receive without a drop of Jewish or Moorish blood, arose little legend. Since the artist received the cross only three years after painting the canvas, it is believed that the king himself completed it.

When you look closely at the canvas, you are surprised at the number of artistic techniques used in the work. The finest glazes were used to paint the faces, in which the paints were superimposed in the thinnest translucent layers. Details of clothing, on the contrary, are written in small, elegant strokes. They amazingly accurately convey the texture of lace and velvet, the finest sewing and the complex texture of the Infanta's dress. The surroundings seem to be done in watercolor or pastel, dissolving in the lightest vague atmosphere.

One of the master's most famous paintings is in the Prado Museum, where it still attracts the gaze of many visitors.

Analysis painting XV - XIX centuries. Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velasquez, Las Meninas

Plan
Doing

2. General painting Diego Velazquez.
3. Determination of the main features of the work "Menin". The plot of the painting genre affiliation. Construction of the space of the picture. composition features. Features of the light structure of the picture. Features of the color structure of the picture. The final characteristic of the artistic and figurative structure, semantic and content originality this work art.
Conclusion

Introduction
Picturesque canvases famous artists allow us to plunge into the past, to understand how life was built, how people lived and looked like many centuries ago. Moreover, we see the world through the eyes of a person of that time, which helps to immerse ourselves in the realities of ancient times. In many ways, we know the history thanks to the paintings, because each element painting canvas tells us a lot. We peer into the faces, study the details of the interior, the costumes and try to understand what these people were thinking. But not only the plot of the picture helps us to comprehend the essence of a bygone era.

On what the picture is drawn, what the artist painted, choice color solutions, perspective, the play of light and shadow says a lot, often more than the plot. After all, the nature of the picture and the nature of the era reflect the character of the painter, his mood, his attitude to life. This means that an attentive viewer will feel and understand the essence of the time when the picture was painted. And then the result of their observations can be compared with their own ideas about that time. And the picture that we get can amaze the imagination. Indeed, often our ideas about the world have nothing to do with reality.

And now I want to go to Spain in the 17th century. To the country of red Spanish wine, fierce bullfights, passionate flamenco. And our guide will be the great Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velasquez. Velasquez. Court painter of the Spanish court.

It is impossible to talk about the painter's work in isolation from the era, from the lifestyle of that time, forgetting about the politics and economy of the country, from everything that influenced people's worldview.

Main part
1. general characteristics Spanish painting of the 17th century.
The 17th century is rightfully considered the golden age of Spanish painting. It was this time that gave many wonderful names: El Greco, Pedro Antonio Vidal, Rodrigo de Villandrando, Jusepe Ribera, Jeronimo Jacinto de Espinosa, Nicolas de Villasis, Juan de Toledo and dozens of others. The painting of the Spanish Golden Age, the Baroque era became the period of the highest flowering of the Spanish visual arts. Spanish art researcher Tatyana Kaptereva notes the following character traits paintings of this period:
- the predominance of the sharpness of observation of nature over artistic imagination
- concentration of attention on a person, with the exclusion of other layers of perception of reality (this led to a weak development of the landscape and a peculiar, extra-plot development of the everyday genre).
Many artists and painting schools allows us to clearly see general trends Spanish painting of this historical period. One can especially single out the Madrid school of Spanish painting, of which Velázquez was a representative. And we, without flattery and subservience, can call him the king of the "Golden Age of Spanish Painting."

2. General characteristics of Diego Velazquez's painting.
Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez (Spanish: Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez) is a Spanish artist, greatest representative golden age of Spanish painting. He was born at the turn of the century, in 1599, in Seville. The talent of the painter was discovered by Diego quite early and at 10 he was assigned to study in the workshop of the famous Seville artist Francisco Herrera the Elder. But soon their paths diverged and he entered the apprenticeship with the artist Francisco Pacheco for six years, starting in December. Pacheco, a man of wide culture and many-sided education, the author of a treatise on the art of painting, a faithful follower of Raphael and Michelangelo, and himself making excellent portraits in pencil, was his own man in the intellectual environment of Seville and among the clergy, since he held the position of censor and expert on church painting under the Holy Inquisition in Seville. The painting school "Academia Sevillana" reflected the academic, official look on the presentation of religious stories and images. It was at this school that young Velázquez received his first technical training and aesthetic skills, in it he became friends with the future sculptor and painter Alonso Cano and the famous Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbaran. And a few years later he became related to his teacher, marrying his daughter. It was a great help to the young talented artist and launched his career.

The first paintings of the author showed - the world has found master of genius brushes. The play of light on the foreground figures, emphasizing the surfaces and textures in the painting "Breakfast", famous for its visual effects canvas "Water carrier". Also, the paintings of Velascas are distinguished by their underlined realism in the depiction of objects and the accurate transmission of the features of nature, enhanced by the contrasting lighting of the foreground figures and the density of the letter. All works are made using a dark, often conditional background, devoid of depth, which leaves a feeling of airlessness, in a laconic and expressive manner. With all this, it should be noted that there is no doubt about the vitality and reliability of the depicted images and scenes. But already at the age of 20, Velazquez realized that the standard style of writing and the plot for that time were far from his aspirations. The first sign was the painting "Christ in the house of Mary and Martha". And the painting “The Water Seller from Seville” is filled with subtle eroticism, subtle, but bold for that time. And now, thanks to the talent and patronage of Pacheco and Count Gaspar de Guzman Olivares, Velasquez becomes a court painter at the court of the Spanish King Philip IV. Long years he painted portraits of courtiers, higher ranks, church dignitaries and even the Pope. He was the first to elevate the portrait to the genre of representative art, favorably presenting those depicted on the canvas. But despite the fact that Velasquez served as a court painter for almost 40 years, he found his way in art, showed the world the beauty of nature and at the same time became the first Spanish artist, who depicted a nude female nature in the painting "Venus with a Mirror". And at the same time, there is not the slightest vulgarity and rudeness in the picture, there is no vulgarity. This is truly an art, great and unsurpassed.

3. Determination of the main features of the work "Menin". The plot of the picture, genre affiliation. Construction of the space of the picture. composition features. Features of the light structure of the picture. Features of the color structure of the picture. The final characteristic of the artistic and figurative structure, the semantic and meaningful originality of this work of art.

The king and queen are not visible. It is assumed that they are outside the picture, in front of it. This is indicated by their vague reflection in the mirror, at the back of the room. But in the foreground of the picture, everything that appears to the eyes of those posing is captured. An artist with a brush and palette peers at his models, looking out from behind an easel. Next to him, in the middle of the room, stands the tiny Infanta Margherita, who was brought in to entertain the royal couple during their tiresome seances. Two ladies of state, in Spanish, meninas, who gave the name to the whole picture, are leaning warningly over her. The one who gives the infanta a vessel was called Doña Maria Sarmiento, the other Isabella de Velasco. Behind Isabella, a woman in a monastic outfit, Doña Marcela de Ulloa, appears from the twilight, and guardadamas - a court rank, obliged to accompany the infanta everywhere. The favorite amusements of the Spanish court are not forgotten: the tiny dwarf Nicolasito Pertusato pushes with his foot the imperturbably dormant huge dog. Nearby, the ugly dwarf Maria Barbola protrudes sedately. The action takes place in the spacious room of the royal palace, allotted to the artist as a workshop. Far away is the figure of the Marshal Don José Nieto. Throwing back the heavy curtain, he peers through the door, and a stream of sunlight pours into the half-dark hall. This work by Velazquez has long been included in the pantheon of world masterpieces and has become so familiar to our eyes that we hardly notice violations of all the rules in it. group portraits. Meanwhile, this canvas is remarkable in that it captures everything that was usually not customary to show: it depicts the behind-the-scenes side of court life. Velazquez usually painted his portraits against a dark, neutral background. In the equestrian portraits of Philip and Anna, the background was the landscape, but spreading trees Against the background of these portraits, they look just like conditional backstage, scenery. In the portrait of Las Meninas, the background is not conditional scenery, but what is behind the scenes, something that was not noticed; at the same time, the background became the main subject of the artist’s attention, captured the entire canvas and, as it were, pushed the main characters out of it.

Opening the veil over reverse side of the royal court, Velazquez strictly observes the rules of courtesy, everything looks decorous and even solemn. No wonder the king did not find anything reprehensible in the picture, and she took her place among the other picturesque treasures of the palace. Meanwhile, it is built on the complex casuistry of the elements of “exaltation” and “relegation”, and only their extreme intricacy saved the master from the troubles that Rembrandt had brought to Rembrandt shortly before by shuffling the figures in The Night Watch.
Describing the place of the royal couple in the picture, one has to resort to conflicting definitions. On the one hand, it is not Philip and Anna that are shown, but only what is behind them; on the other hand, they are glorified by the fact that the whole picture and even the artist himself serve as objects of their perception; their perception is affirmed as subjective, since the artist who painted the real picture, and the viewer viewing it can take the point of view of the royal couple as mere mortals. The invisibility of the royal couple may mean that they are incommensurable with close world paintings; on the other hand, it loses this incommensurability, turning into a cloudy reflection in the mirror.
The same complex casuistry of "exaltation" and "bringing down" underlies the image of the little infanta. In Las Meninas, she holds the second most important place. It has been argued that it is the main actor. Velazquez worked hard on the image of infants, pale, sickly girls, wrapped in pantyhose, in unchildish, stiff poses. Portraits of growing children were sent to the relatives of the king; the former imperial collections of the Vienna Museum have several copies of them. Only the consonance of colorful spots, tender as a fresh field bouquet, enlivened this scheme, legitimized by tradition. Velazquez did not dare to break it in Las Meninas either. The infanta chrysalis is the most frozen figure in the whole picture. At the same time, her impassibility is a sign of her highest dignity. However, thanks to the finely balanced composition, the little infanta finds herself in a somewhat unusual position. It would seem that all the conventions and conventions are observed here. The Infanta serves as the center of attention for all the characters and occupies a central position in the picture. Her head falls exactly in the middle of the huge canvas, at the perspective vanishing point, and all this makes her figure stand out from her motley retinue. However, this provision requires reservations and amendments. The canvas put forward cuts off a narrow strip of the picture on the left. Actually, the span occupied by the figures should be considered a picture, and within its limits the central place belongs not to the infanta, but to the figure of the marshal who stopped at the door. He acts as such a sharp silhouette against the light background of the door that the viewer's eye, bypassing the figures of the foreground, involuntarily strives for him. This does not mean, of course, that the predominant role of the Infanta is completely destroyed, but it makes her predominance half fictitious. An unprejudiced viewer does not immediately notice its central position. No wonder the picture was named after secondary characters- menin.

At the same time, another technique was used in Las Meninas, depriving the image of the Infanta of her royal halo. The whole picture is built on paired oppositions. This is reflected in the two leaning meninas, matching mirrors and doors, and two mythological paintings on the back wall. Among these correspondences, a strange similarity between the little infanta and the dwarf Barbola is striking. The same meaningless look, the same ridiculous sedateness, almost the same outfit. Freak Barbola is, as it were, a parody of the pretty, almost unearthly image of a blond, blue-eyed infanta. It is very possible that direct parody was not part of the artist's intentions. In the portraits of that era, pugs and bulldogs, with their ugliness, only set off the human goodness of their owners. At the same time, the inclusion of dwarfs in a group portrait not only perpetuates them on a par with the highest persons, but also reduces these persons from their pedestal.
The painting "Las Meninas" is so remarkable, so rising above the average level of group portraits of the 17th century, that it gives almost a more complete picture of Velasquez's worldview than many of his other works. The man in Velázquez's painting is more closely associated with environment more receptive to action external forces, reveals a greater wealth of relationships with the outside world. It can be said that not only the king, but in general a person is not the main character in Las Meninas, as he was in classical art. Everything depends on the point of view. There is the point of view of Philip and Anna, there is the point of view of the artist, there is the point of view of the viewer. The whole forms a system of worlds interpenetrating each other, or, in the words of the philosophy of the XVII-XVIII centuries, monads. Each has its own legitimacy. From the point of view of each, the meaning of the whole changes.

In "Las Meninas" the decay became even more acute. The royal couple is replaced by her reflection in the mirror, so her real basis may fall off, be taken out of the frame of the picture.

But the mirror in Las Meninas has another meaning. It falls strictly in the middle of the picture, next to the open door through which a bright sunbeam bursts. Two light spots on the semi-dark wall: the open door leads into the distance, beyond the twilight hall, the mirror catches a glimpse of the world in front of the canvas. The picture turns out to be the intersection of two spheres. Perhaps the mirror motif was inspired by Velazquez from the Netherlands, who were very much appreciated in Spain. No wonder van Eyck, back in the 15th century, in the portrait of the Arnolfini couple, captured his reflection in a round mirror on the wall. But van Eyck's mirror does not expand the space. Reflecting the figure of the artist, it only introduces him to the peaceful comfort of a burgher's house, which is also hinted at by the inscription: "I was here."

So, in relation to space, Velasquez's painting forms the intersection of two spheres. In relation to the action, several plot nodes are connected in it. In the foreground, the artist paints a portrait, meninas serve the infanta, a dwarf frolics. In the distance, the marshal, going up the stairs, throws back the curtain and indifferently looks into open door. Among the Dutch, and especially Pieter de Hooch, such "outsiders" figures are not uncommon. But in quiet burgher interiors, where a person becomes a staffage, all action freezes, and this motif loses its sharpness. On the contrary, in Las Meninas the clash of two planes contains something of the multidimensionality of the new European novel. The appearance of the marshal is so unexpected, he looks so naturally through the open door, as if urging us to leave the semi-dark chambers of the palace, that we, like the reader of the novel, carried away by the second plot line and forgetting about the main character, are ready not to notice the infanta and her retinue.

In classical art, the frame closes the picture, as the prologue and epilogue close the poem. In Velázquez, on the contrary, the frame serves only as an accidental span, on the sides of which and in front of which there is reality. Depicting how portraits are painted (in particular, the Evangelist Luke - the Madonna), the old masters prove their veracity by comparing the original and the image. Limiting himself to the very process of painting a picture, Velasquez, in essence, does not show either the original or the image. Looking at how Velasquez paints a portrait of Philip in the picture, we can guess that Velasquez, who paints Philip, painted the real Velazquez. We seem to ascend to more and more high degree reality, but we never reach the absolute. The picture "Las Meninas" can be called a portrait about a portrait, a picture about a picture: the span of the door, the mirror, the pictures on the wall and the picture itself - all these are the stages of including the image in the frames, the stage of pictorial embodiment.

The picture takes us to a measurable space, to the realm of the golden section. The regular rectangles of the paintings and windows are reminiscent of Leonardo's Last Supper carpets. Only the composition of Velasquez is not based on symmetry, but rather on the balance of figures and architectural forms.

You need to carefully look at their ratios. We see that the mirror and the door in the back of the room are located strictly in the middle, as if on the sides of the main axis of the composition, right above the figure of the infanta. We notice, further, that the paintings above them deviate somewhat from this axis to the left, so that they are directly above the mirror with the reflection of the royal couple. Moreover, both of these pictures are built according to the golden ratio and are so harmonious that this second tectonic system lies on top of the first and includes geometric shapes in the ratio of figures.

But if the vertical axes of the composition are somewhat shifted and therefore dynamic, then the divisions along the horizontal are more calm. First of all, the whole picture, as well as one of the two landscapes of Velasquez "Villa Medici", is divided into two equal parts, and the narrow strip of the wall between the paintings serves as the border between them. top row and a door. The lower half of the picture is occupied by figures.

The upper is free, more airy and light. This decision alone is as clear and simple as it could be only with Poussin (new proof that Velasquez's meaning is not in one colorism). But besides this, it turns out that each half of the picture is divided into two parts; the boundary of this division at the top is the ceiling line, at the bottom - the floor line, while both divisions quite accurately obey the law of the golden section. True, this regularity can be established only by measurements, which each viewer is not obliged to make. But it can be argued that anyone who perceives a picture with an unprejudiced eye, unconsciously feels the harmony of its proportions. If you close the narrow strip at the top of the picture and turn it into a square, you can see how important these relationships are. The arrangement of the figures will remain unchanged, but the picture will lose its lightness and airiness.

We do not know exactly how consciously all these forms were applied by Velázquez. We do not know the sketches for the painting. There is nothing incredible about her creative history random visual impressions reflected in cursory sketches also played a role. However, in the form in which these impressions are combined, they form a harmonious and complete image in which all parts are mutually conditioned, and the whole is multifaceted and thoughtful.

Conclusion
It so happened that an accidentally seen scene from an ordinary palace life became the bible of painting. A picture that is not immediately evident, but which will never be forgotten. Light, airy, delightfully simple and at the same time, incredibly complex, exactly corresponding to the canons of painting. A painting that can be considered the crown of the king of the Golden Age of Spanish painting.

Bibliography