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Meninas: Las Meninas
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Las Meninas was the picture which Luca Giordano called the "theology of painting," another way of expressing the opinion of Sir Thomas Lawrence, that this work is the philosophy of art, so true is it in rendering the desired effect. The story is told that the king painted the red cross of Santiago on the breast of the painter, as it appears today on the canvas. The painting may have been influenced by another very famous painting, the Arnolfini Portrait of 1434 by Jan van Eyck. At the time it was in the Spanish royal collection, and Velázquez would have been familiar with it.[9] This ... has a mirror at the back, reflecting figures who would have the same angle of vision as does the viewer of the painting.
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Las Meninas or The Royal Family is one of the great problem pictures in the history of art. An almost infinite number of interpretations have now been proposed for the scene it shows. At first sight... Las Meninas seems to present no problems at all, and indeed appears perfectly straightforward in its sober geometry and good-humoured clarity.
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Velázquez's Las Meninas has long captivated viewers by its effect of naturalism. Nineteenth century critics saw it as anticipating the invention of the camera with its effect of capturing a "snapshot" of a moment in time and space. Contemporary critics have emphasized the calculated control Velázquez employed to construct this effect of naturalism. Rather than as a snap-shot, a transparent window, or a spotless mirror of the world, Las Meninas is today seen to be more about the nature of painting, the artist's control over representation, and the status of Velázquez as a court artist.
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Picasso's variations on "Las Meninas" finally came to nothing. It is true that he succeeded in articulating the core idea of his new version: that the artist occupies a new, changed position in modern, liberal society. The large composition that opened the series expressed this idea powerfully. The Picasso style is in a sense the very definition of modern art, providing the contemporary artist with an entire range of available approaches. And Picasso, revising the original in colour terms too, was aiming to outdo his illustrious forerunner. He tackled the task with furious energy, and even interposed sequences of works devoted to particular problems (the pigeons) into the "Meninas" series.
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A comparison of Las Meninas to a work like Leonardo's Last Supper is instructive. In the two diagrams above the green lines define the central axis of the back walls of the rooms depicted in the paintings. The red diagonal lines define the center of the paintings, and the vertical red lines articulate the central axes of the paintings. The blue lines articulate the orthogonals in the perspective systems. As is well known all of these converge in the case of Leonardo's painting on the head of Christ. In the Velázquez none of these line up.
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In Las Meninas, Velázquez is shown on the left-hand side of the painting standing in front of a large canvas. He is painting a portrait of King Philip IV and Queen Mariana of Spain, whose images are reflected in the mirror on the back wall of the room. The Infanta Margarita and her companions—the meninas or young ladies-in-waiting—occupy the center of the composition. Their attention is focused on the royal couple whose position, based on their reflection in the mirror, is the same as that of the spectator. With this technique, Velázquez effectively extended the space depicted on the canvas to include the real space the viewer occupies.
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Las Meninas