There Is Space And Light In This Picture, As In Any Room.
Every Object Is Detached, As In The Common
Miracle of the stereoscope.
If art consist in making a fleeting moment immortal, if the True is a
higher ideal
Than the Beautiful, then it will be hard to find a greater
painting than this. It is utterly without beauty; its tone is a cold
olive green-gray; there is not one redeeming grace or charm about it
except the noble figure of Velazquez himself, - yet in its austere
fidelity to truth it stands incomparable in the world. It gained
Velazquez his greatest triumph. You see on his breast a sprawling red
cross, painted evidently by an unskilful hand. This was the gracious
answer made by Philip IV. when the artist asked him if anything was
wanting to the picture. This decoration, daubed by the royal hand, was
the accolade of the knighthood of Santiago, - an honor beyond the dreams
of an artist of that day. It may be considered the highest compliment
ever paid to a painter, except the one paid by Courbet to himself, when
he refused to be decorated by the Man of December.
Among Velazquez's most admirable studies of life is his picture of the
Borrachos. A group of rustic roysterers are admitting a neophyte into
the drunken confrerie. He kneels to receive a crown of ivy from the
hands of the king of the revel. A group of older tipplers are filling
their cups, or eyeing their brimming glasses, with tipsy, mock-serious
glances.
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