DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63331#0010
6
THE ART OF VELAZQUEZ
have existed, in their creators’ brains before a touch was put upon the
canvas. The Madonna di San Sisto is a vision, seen first, and then elabor-
ately realised. Its effect upon the spectator is a faint echo of what he
might feel were he thus brought face to face with the Mother of God.
Such a picture is complete as soon as it has taken final shape in the artist’s
mind. Technically, his task is rather not to spoil it than to add anything
to it. It is dangerous to generalise on artistic matters, for art changes with
every votary that conies to its shrine ; but, speaking broadly, we may say
that the Italians, down to, and even beyond, the days of Raphael, imagined
a goal beyond the powers of paint, and struggled as near it as they could ;
while such art as that into which Velazquez was born takes the nearest
theme, and builds a creation upon it by dint of consummate and ex-
pressive execution. This is in harmony with the inevitable evolution of
art. There is no need to pit Italy against Spain, or rather against
Velazquez. The one greatness does not exclude the other, and the lapse
of a century between the earlier climax and the later had more to do with
their difference than any real antagonism between the methods they
employed.
I have used the phrase “such art as that into which Velazquez was
born.” Those who claim that the great Spaniard was a sort of modern,
born before his time, and anticipating in his art the notions to which the
world at large has only now arrived after a further two centuries of ex-
perience, may object to such a way of putting the case. And yet, if
anything, it appears to me too weak. Not only had Velazquez pre-
cedents for everything he did, not only was his finest work anticipated,
in intention, by many an inferior master, both in Italy and in his own
native country, but he himself was rather slow than prompt to take
example by the best of what had already been done. Like Rembrandt,
he was the reverse of precocious. His earliest productions are both dull
in themselves and founded upon dull examples. They are promising
chiefly in the evidence they afford of a faculty for taking pains. It was
not until just before his first visit to Italy that he awoke to the larger
possibilities of the art he practised, or to the nature of his own gifts. Even
then he hankered for a time after false gods, perpetrating the melodramatic
San Placido Crucifixion, and such Guido-fed productions as the Forge ofi
Vulcan and the Christ at the Pillar. Velazquez was always sincere.
THE ART OF VELAZQUEZ
have existed, in their creators’ brains before a touch was put upon the
canvas. The Madonna di San Sisto is a vision, seen first, and then elabor-
ately realised. Its effect upon the spectator is a faint echo of what he
might feel were he thus brought face to face with the Mother of God.
Such a picture is complete as soon as it has taken final shape in the artist’s
mind. Technically, his task is rather not to spoil it than to add anything
to it. It is dangerous to generalise on artistic matters, for art changes with
every votary that conies to its shrine ; but, speaking broadly, we may say
that the Italians, down to, and even beyond, the days of Raphael, imagined
a goal beyond the powers of paint, and struggled as near it as they could ;
while such art as that into which Velazquez was born takes the nearest
theme, and builds a creation upon it by dint of consummate and ex-
pressive execution. This is in harmony with the inevitable evolution of
art. There is no need to pit Italy against Spain, or rather against
Velazquez. The one greatness does not exclude the other, and the lapse
of a century between the earlier climax and the later had more to do with
their difference than any real antagonism between the methods they
employed.
I have used the phrase “such art as that into which Velazquez was
born.” Those who claim that the great Spaniard was a sort of modern,
born before his time, and anticipating in his art the notions to which the
world at large has only now arrived after a further two centuries of ex-
perience, may object to such a way of putting the case. And yet, if
anything, it appears to me too weak. Not only had Velazquez pre-
cedents for everything he did, not only was his finest work anticipated,
in intention, by many an inferior master, both in Italy and in his own
native country, but he himself was rather slow than prompt to take
example by the best of what had already been done. Like Rembrandt,
he was the reverse of precocious. His earliest productions are both dull
in themselves and founded upon dull examples. They are promising
chiefly in the evidence they afford of a faculty for taking pains. It was
not until just before his first visit to Italy that he awoke to the larger
possibilities of the art he practised, or to the nature of his own gifts. Even
then he hankered for a time after false gods, perpetrating the melodramatic
San Placido Crucifixion, and such Guido-fed productions as the Forge ofi
Vulcan and the Christ at the Pillar. Velazquez was always sincere.