It is difficult to categorize Velazquez’s Las Meninas as it incorporates elements of many different genres of painting. Firstly, it is an artist’s self-portrait, even though he did not depict himself as the central figure. It is also a group portrait as nearly every figure in the painting is identifiable. Included among these figures are the King and Queen of Spain, Phillip IV and Mariana, who’s reflections are shown in the mirror on the far wall of the room, and their daughter, heir to the Spanish throne, Infanta Margarita Maria, which makes this a court portrait as well. Finally, this painting is also a genre scene depicting a Velazquez’s daily life as court painter to the King of Spain.
The way Velazquez’s has arranged the figures of the royal family members within the composition follows the contemporary Dutch model for depicting lineage and succession (Alpers, 39). The heir is shown as the central figure while the parents are shown as smaller figures in the background. Velazquez’s employs a similar arrangement in his painting Baltasar Carlos at Riding School-outside Buen Retiro. In this painting Velazquez’s depicts the young prince learning to ride in the foreground and his royal parents are shown up on the balcony in the background.
While Velazquez’s revitalized the Spanish court portrait, overall, Velazquez’s royal portraiture does not greatly differ, compositionally, from the precedent set by other court painters of the period. Full length court portraits were traditionally showed the subject facing the viewer but with the head and body turned slightly to one side. The settings were very minimal consisting, usually of nothing more than a table and some drapery. Velazquez’s informal treatment of the subject suggests that this painting is not meant to be read as simply a court portrait. However, this is not to say that Velazquez’s choice to include the members of the royal family is without meaning. In fact, the common link between all the figures in the painting is that they are all members of the royal household and, by depicting himself among them; he declares that he too belongs in this elite circle.
At the time of this works creation Velazquez’s was a member of the royal household. Francis Pacheco, Velazquez’s father-in-law indicates that as court painter Velazquez’s was respected and well treated by Philip the IV who would come visit Velazquez’s in his studio almost every day. Velazquez’s involvement in the royal household increased slowly beginning with his appointment as ayuda de camara, or gentleman in waiting, in 1643 (textbook). Almost 10 years after this promotion to gentleman in waiting, Philip the IV appointed Velazquez’s aposentador major de palacio, or Chief Chamberlain of the Imperial Palace, in 1652. Velazquez’s indicates his position as Chief Chamberlain in Las Meninas by the two-ringed key that is shown hanging from his waist. The key grants the Chief Chamberlain access to every room in the palace. Despite the key being a necessity given that the Chief Chamberlain is responsible for the maintenance of the entire palace possession of the key still confers great honor on its owner as only one other member of the household staff was permitted to have one. (brown)
In her article, Velazquez’s Las Meninas, Madlyn Kahr references common parallels drawn between relationship of Alexander the Great and his favorite painter, Apelles, as described in Pliny’s Natural History, to the relationship between Velazquez’s and Philip IV. Kahr writes, ‘The legendary friendship between Alexander the Great and his favorite painter’was the customary model for later court painters and their royal patrons.’ This comparison to Apelles was also used to describe Titian and his relationship with Charles V. A letter to Titian regarding his service as court painter to Charles the V specifically references Apelles. It reads, ‘Your gifts as an artist and your genius for painting persons from life appear to us so great that you deserve to be called the Apelles of this age. Following the example of our forerunners, Alexander the Great and Octavianus Augustus, of whom one would only be painted by Apelles, the other only by the finest masters, we have had ourselves painted by you.’ (citation found in brown) Velazquez’s appointment as court painter to Philip the IV meant that he was the only artist who was allowed to paint the king and his Family just as Apelles was the only artist allowed to paint Alexander the Great.
The parallel to Apelles and Alexander the Great indicates more than the prestige of royal patronage. In a critical part of the legend Alexander the Great commissions Apelles to paint the nude figure of his favorite mistress, Campaspe. However, when he realizes that Apelles has fallen in love with her he gives her to him as a present. In so doing, he sacrifices his love, who, ‘once a kings mistress, was now a painter’s.’ (pliny from kahr) By sacrificing his mistress and giving her to Apelles, Alexander the Great implies that Apelles, a painter, is worthy of a woman loved by a king and by extension ennobles Apelles and his profession. This argument is well summarized by Brown when he writes, ”an art that was patronized by kings was, ipso facto’, a noble art, because a king would honor with his presence and favors only an activity appropriate to his own exalted station. Therefore, the presence of the sovereign ennobled the art.’
Velazquez’s drive to further the nobility of the art of painting stemmed from his desire to become a knight of the Order of Santiago. The Order of Santiago was an elite aristocratic military order founded in the twelfth century to help reconquer Spain from the Muslims. To gain acceptance to the order one needed to prove that he was the legitimate son of a noble line, establish the purity of his family’s Christian bloodline and prove that no on in his family had been condemned by the Inquisition. The last, and most important, condition barred the acceptance of anyone who practices a manual discipline, which included painting (brown). However, in 1653, the Order of Santiago created a rule under which they would consider the admittance of painters who had not accepted payment for their works. (brown)
Philip IV nominated Velazquez’s to the Order of Santiago in 1658 at which point and investigation of Velazquez’s personal and family history began. The investigation conducted was incredibly extensive. One hundred and forty eight people were interviewed including many other artists who all testified that Velazquez’s had never sold his paintings. Despite the validity of Velazquez’s noble Christian heritage the Council of the Order rejected Velazquez’s claim on the part of his paternal grandmother and both his maternal grandparents. The allegations were made to prevent a painter from joining the ranks. However two papal dispensations fixed these problems and Velazquez’s was finally accepted. The king painted the cross on Velazquez’s chest himself.
The interpretation of Las Meninas as an effort by Velazquez’s to ennoble the art of painting is contingent upon the dialogue between the subject of the painting, the historical and social contexts, and the artist personal biography. Foucault, the pioneer of the philosophical school of thought, took the exact opposite approach. He instead describes, in extreme detail, what he saw and in so doing describes ‘a complex network of visual exchanges which simultaneously reinforces and dissolves assumptions about the relationship between painter, subject-model, world and viewer; between those who represent, those who are represented and those who look.’ (gresl”)
What is outside of the scene gives meaning to what is inside the scene and therefore the King and Queen can be defined as the center of the spectacle. Foucault states, ‘Our first glance at the painting told us what it is that creates this spectacle-as-observation. It is the two sovereigns. One can sense their presence already in the respectful gaze of the figures in the picture’they provide the centre around which the entire representation is-ordered: it is they who are being faced, it is towards them that everyone is turned” (Foucault, 1970) ‘We begin to suspect that Velazquez’s made his composition seem improvised and unstable’by conceiving his whole cast of characters as subordinated to yet another centrality. For he located the picture’s dramatic and psychological focus outside itself, displaced from what the picture actually shows to what it beholds. It is as though the depicted scene were a dependency, caught in reaction to its deferred center.’ (steinberg)
(Foucault explains that) the location in space occupied by the King and Queen is ‘symbolically sovereign’ in that the King and Queen occupy it but also ‘because of the triple function it fulfils in relation to the picture.’ In this space “occurs an exact superimposition of the model’s gaze, the spectator’s, ‘ and the painter’s.” (Foucault, 1970) While these three occupy the same place they observe the scene at different times. The King and Queen, or the models, gaze out at the scene as they are being painted, Velazquez’s, looks upon it as he composes the painting, not the one he is depicted painting but Las Meninas itself, and the viewer who looks upon the finished product.
In this explanation of the ‘triple function’ of the location in space simultaneously occupied by the subject, painter and viewer Foucault alludes to what he explains to be ‘an essential void.’ He explains that in all the gazes that make up the visual web of this painting there is a gap, or a missing fragment, caused by the absence of the King and Queen, who are the center of this representation. The very foundation upon which the representation depends is proved to be an artifice, which causes the image to forever oscillate between different forms and meanings.
Foucault’s close visual analysis of Las Meninas has become a quasi-essential reference and his analysis appears in nearly every interpretation of Las Meninas that has followed it. This is, in part, because it represents a reading of Las Meninas that is not restricted by the established procedures of art historical interpretation and also because it engages with the painting in a purely philosophical and epistemological manner. (gresl”) Alpers calls Foucaults writing the most serious and sustained piece of writing on this work in our time.
”painting is an art that is nourished by rare and subtle intellectual capacities.’ (kahr) it would be foolish to disregard the seemingly obvious political message within Las Meninas however, it would also be unwise to consider this Velazquez’s only message within the painting. The epistemological and philosophical analyses of Velazquez’s’ Las Meninas are equally valid and contribute to Velazquez’s claim that the art of painting is not just a mechanical discipline but also a liberal and intellectual pursuit. In her article ‘Velazquez’s and Las Meninas’ Madlyn Kahr concludes her argument with the questions, ‘What better way to show that as a painter he was neither a craftsman nor a tradesman, but an official of the court? And what more convincing evidence could be produced to prove that painting is an art that is nourished by rare and subtle intellectual capacities?’
While Kahr develops a solid argument that, by associating the art of painting and the artist with the royal family and the royal household, Velazquez’s is able to ennoble himself and his profession she does not make a strong argument as to how Velazquez’s actually distinguishes the liberal aspect of art from its craft. This is a trend that is noticeable across most interpretations like Kahr’s despite the distinction between the liberal and mechanical aspects of art being critical to their argument.