DiegoVelazquez.com is a tribute to Diego Velázquez (1599 - 1660), Spain's greatest painter was also one of the supreme artists of all time. A master of technique, highly individual in style, Diego Velasquez may have had a greater influence on European art than any other painter.

Velázquez was born in Seville early in June 1599, the son of a lawyer of noble Portugese descent. He was an artist of astonishing technique and confidence, and in the opinion of many art critics unsurpassed as a portrait artist. His great fame came long after his death, starting in the first quarter of the 19th century, when it proved a model for the realist and impressionist artists, in particular Edouard Manet. His influence continued on to later artists such as Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí.

Until the 19th-century interest in Velázquez, his pictures in the palaces and museum of Madrid were little known to the outside world; and from want of popular appreciation they mostly escaped being stolen by the French marshals during the Peninsular War. In 1828, Sir David Wilkie wrote from Madrid that he felt himself in the presence of a new power in art as he looked at the works of Velázquez, and at the same time found a wonderful affinity between this master and the English school of portrait painters, being specially reminded of the firm, square touch of Henry Raeburn. He was struck by the sense of modernness of impression, of direct contact with nature, and of vital force which pervaded all the work of Velázquez, in landscape as well as in portraiture. Time and criticism have now fully established his reputation as one of the most consummate of painters, and accordingly John Ruskin says of him that “everything Velázquez does may be taken as absolutely right by the student.” At the present day his marvellous technique and strong individuality have given him a power in European art such as is exercised by no other of the old masters. Although acquainted with all the Italian schools, and the friend of the foremost painters of his day, he was strong enough to withstand every external influence and to work out for himself the development of his own najure and his own principles of art.

A realist of the realists, Velázquez painted only what he saw; consequently his imagination seems limited. His religious conceptions are of the earth earthy, although some of his works, such as the Crucifixion and the Christ at the Column, are characterized by an intensity of pathos in which he ranks second to no painter. His men and women seem to breathe, his horses are full of action and his dogs of life, so quick and close is his grasp of his subject. England was the first nation to recognize his extraordinary merit, and it owns by far the largest share of his works outside of Spain.

Of the 274 works attributed to Velázquez by Mr Curtis, 121 are in the United Kingdom, while France has but 13, Austria-Hungary 12, Russia seven, and Germany about the same number. Beruete, who only allows to known pictures to be genuine works of Velázquez, allots 14 to the United Kingdom, a number still considerably exceeding that of any other country save Spain.

But Velázquez can only be seen in all his power in the Museo del Prado at Madrid, where over sixty of his works are preserved, including historical, mythological and religious subjects, as well as landscapes and portraits. It is hardly creditable to the patriotism of Seville, his native town, that no example of his work is to be seen in the gallery of that city. Seville was then in the height of its prosperity, “the pearl of Spain,” carrying on a great trade with the New World, and was also a vigorous centre of literature and art. For more than a hundred years it had fostered a native school of painting which ranked high in the Peninsula, and it reckoned among its citizens many whose names are prominent in Spanish literature.