Checking out the mesmerising Las Meninas
Few paints in the background of art have the capability to mesmerise as long as this one.
Painted by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez in concerning 1656, Las Meninas (The Maids of Honour) attains a degree of aesthetic refinement hardly matched by any kind of paint before or because.
On the surface, we are looking at a scene from the Spanish court of King Philip IV– an area in the Royal Alcázar of Madrid that Velázquez made use of as his studio.
Yet there is so much extra. The method the paint dabble point of views and reflections transforms the picture right into a trip de force on how artifice and reality satisfy in a masterpiece.
Here, we are considering a painting that seems looking straight at us. Nearly all of the numbers look outside, repairing us in their stare– exactly how do they hold us in their focus? What are we to think of them?
Let’s find out …
The artist at his canvas
