DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63331#0029
CHAPTER IV
THE EARLY WORK OF VELAZQUEZ
We saw in the biographical section of this study that the youthful
Velazquez had two very different men for his teachers—the fiery, free,
and impulsive Herrera, and the tame, methodical Pacheco. One of the
puzzling things about the master’s development is, that in his beginnings
he took after Pacheco, to return in his maturity to the bolder methods
of Herrera. There is much in the latter’s existing productions to remind
us of the Surrender of Breda, and even of the series of dwarfs and
buffoons. Pacheco, on the other hand, is clearly responsible for the
clumsy design and the tame smoothness of execution we see in the
bodegones. So far as I know, only one other instance of a similar vacilla-
tion is to be found in the history of art. Albert Cuijp appears to have
deserted a free for a lighter and more laborious manner, returning after-
wards to his first style and basing his final development upon it. The
first efforts of Velazquez, the work he did or may have done in the studio
of Herrera, are not now to be traced. They were probably of very slight
merit—he was not a quick beginner—and may all have been destroyed
as soon as finished. It is unlikely, however, that they resembled the dull,
plodding productions he turned out while under the wing of Pacheco ;
and even if he only stayed twelve months with Herrera, as Justi supposes,
the absence of all positive witness to the way in which he spent his time
may be lamented. The Velazquez we know begins with the bodegones,
with one or two heads in the Prado, and with the Aguador at Apsley
House. What do these pictures tell us of his personality ?
The first thing to strike us about them is a curious contradiction in the
witness they bear to their author’s originality. It required unusual inde-
THE EARLY WORK OF VELAZQUEZ
We saw in the biographical section of this study that the youthful
Velazquez had two very different men for his teachers—the fiery, free,
and impulsive Herrera, and the tame, methodical Pacheco. One of the
puzzling things about the master’s development is, that in his beginnings
he took after Pacheco, to return in his maturity to the bolder methods
of Herrera. There is much in the latter’s existing productions to remind
us of the Surrender of Breda, and even of the series of dwarfs and
buffoons. Pacheco, on the other hand, is clearly responsible for the
clumsy design and the tame smoothness of execution we see in the
bodegones. So far as I know, only one other instance of a similar vacilla-
tion is to be found in the history of art. Albert Cuijp appears to have
deserted a free for a lighter and more laborious manner, returning after-
wards to his first style and basing his final development upon it. The
first efforts of Velazquez, the work he did or may have done in the studio
of Herrera, are not now to be traced. They were probably of very slight
merit—he was not a quick beginner—and may all have been destroyed
as soon as finished. It is unlikely, however, that they resembled the dull,
plodding productions he turned out while under the wing of Pacheco ;
and even if he only stayed twelve months with Herrera, as Justi supposes,
the absence of all positive witness to the way in which he spent his time
may be lamented. The Velazquez we know begins with the bodegones,
with one or two heads in the Prado, and with the Aguador at Apsley
House. What do these pictures tell us of his personality ?
The first thing to strike us about them is a curious contradiction in the
witness they bear to their author’s originality. It required unusual inde-