The Painter's Painter

"I would rather be the first painter of common things than second in higher art." ~D.V

(The above photo was taken with an aperture of f/5.6, a shutter speed of 1/100, a 18-55mm lens, with a Nikon D90

Diego Velazquez

Diego Velazquez (1599-1660) was born in Seville, Spain. His paintings included landscapes, mythological and religious subjects, and scenes from common life, called genre pictures. He had a great skill in merging colour, light, space, rhythm of line, and mass in which all had equal value. His representation of nature was so real that his objects seemed to really exist in his paintings. He had the ability to capture the personality, dignity, spirit, and personality of the sitter.

After his marriage at the age of 19, Velazquez went to Madrid. In Madrid he was summoned to Madrid to paint a portrait of King Philip IV. He painting was so successful, he was named official painter to the king. He remained attached to the court for the rest of his life, eventually receiving a knighthood.

Most of Velazquez's work was for the king, so it remained in the palace where few people saw it. Not until the Napoleon's Peninsular War was some of his work dispersed throughout Northern Europe. In the 19th century, his paintings made an enormous impact upon artists and he was remembered as the painter's painter.

(Here's a video that summarizes Diego Velazquez. (I know it's almost 8 minutes, but I really recommend watching it, as it shows more of his famous paintings and gives more insight to his fabulous mind.))

The Renaissance

The Renaissance (from rinascere "to be reborn") was a cultural movement that spanned the period roughly from the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. It marks the period of European history at the end of the Middle Ages and the start of the Modern world. During this time, artists and musicians produced works that displayed more artistic freedom and individualism. This creativity allowed artists to abandon the stricter ways of the Medieval Era. Humanists celebrated the mind, beauty, power, and enormous potential of human beings. They believed that people were able to experience God directly and should have a personal, emotional relationship to their faith. God had made the world but humans were able to share in his glory by becoming creators themselves. These new cultural movements gave inspiration to artists, while Italy’s trade with Europe and Asia produced wealth that created a large market for art.

To that end, painters also developed other techniques, studying light, shadow, and, famously in the case of Leonardo da Vinci, human anatomy. There are specific things that were portrayed in Renaissance art: perspective (linear, horizon line, vanishing point (to add three-dimensional depth and space)), shadows and light (could be used to draw the viewer’s eye to a particular point in the painting), emotion (the viewer experiences an emotional impact), and realism and naturalism (artists studied human anatomy, measuring proportions and seeking the ideal human form).