DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63331#0073
CHAPTER VI
SECOND STAY IN ITALY
1649-1651
During the first months of his second stay in Italy Velazquez seems
to have been entirely occupied with his work for the king. His brush
lay idle, and his time was passed with picture-dealers, moulders, sculptors,
and decorators. So that, when at last he was commanded to the Vatican
to paint the Pope, he had to take a preliminary canter to supple his
joints. His faithful Morisco, Pareja, offered a convenient model, and
Velazquez painted the portrait alluded to in the last chapter. Pareja
has given us a version of his own features in his large picture of the
Calling of St. Matthew at Madrid. Here he has been kind to himself,
and has Europeanised his own half-African physiognomy. But, in spite
of this, we have no difficulty in identifying this rather good-looking
young Spaniard with the swarthy Othello who looks out upon us with
so tell-tale a glance from the two canvases at Castle Howard and
Longford Castle. One of these must be the picture with which
Velazquez got his hand in at Rome, and Lord Carlisle’s version seems
to have the better claim of the two. The painter has wasted time on
no preliminaries, although the slave has had a moment to put on a
clean collar and his best cloak. He stands up, his head turned slightly
over his right shoulder, and his muscular right hand placed on the
bend of his left arm. A whole history is written in the expression of
his face. In some ways we know more about Pareja than Velazquez
did when he began this picture. We know that he was a surreptitious
painter, and that the look of “ I could, an if I would,” handed down
to us by the unerring eye of his master, had not a little behind it.
E
SECOND STAY IN ITALY
1649-1651
During the first months of his second stay in Italy Velazquez seems
to have been entirely occupied with his work for the king. His brush
lay idle, and his time was passed with picture-dealers, moulders, sculptors,
and decorators. So that, when at last he was commanded to the Vatican
to paint the Pope, he had to take a preliminary canter to supple his
joints. His faithful Morisco, Pareja, offered a convenient model, and
Velazquez painted the portrait alluded to in the last chapter. Pareja
has given us a version of his own features in his large picture of the
Calling of St. Matthew at Madrid. Here he has been kind to himself,
and has Europeanised his own half-African physiognomy. But, in spite
of this, we have no difficulty in identifying this rather good-looking
young Spaniard with the swarthy Othello who looks out upon us with
so tell-tale a glance from the two canvases at Castle Howard and
Longford Castle. One of these must be the picture with which
Velazquez got his hand in at Rome, and Lord Carlisle’s version seems
to have the better claim of the two. The painter has wasted time on
no preliminaries, although the slave has had a moment to put on a
clean collar and his best cloak. He stands up, his head turned slightly
over his right shoulder, and his muscular right hand placed on the
bend of his left arm. A whole history is written in the expression of
his face. In some ways we know more about Pareja than Velazquez
did when he began this picture. We know that he was a surreptitious
painter, and that the look of “ I could, an if I would,” handed down
to us by the unerring eye of his master, had not a little behind it.
E