On this date in 1599 Diego Velázquez, Spanish painter of the Baroque period, was baptised. 10 things you might not know about him:
His full name was Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. His parents were Juan Rodríguez de Silva, a notary, and Jerónima Velázquez. It’s possibly because he was from a family of Portuguese immigrants that he had his mother’s surname.
When he was about 12, he was apprenticed to Francisco Pacheco, an artist and teacher in Seville, for six years.
About a year after the apprenticeship ended, Velázquez married his teacher’s daughter, Juana Pacheco.
Velázquez’s early paintings were mostly bodegones (ie, kitchen scenes with prominent still-life), an example being Old Woman Frying Eggs. Some of these, like Kitchen Scene with Christ in the House of Martha, had religious scenes in the background.
His early style was realist, but after a tour of Italy in 1629, his work became more impressionistic.
There are only a couple of paintings of nudes surviving from this period, thanks to the Spanish Inquisition, and one of these is by Velázquez. It’s called the Rokeby Venus. Nobody knows who his model was, or whether it was painted in Spain or Italy. Painting nudes at that times was pretty rebellious, especially when the artist used live naked models, as Velázquez did, rather than copying from a book.
Francisco Pacheco had contacts with the Spanish royal family at the time and introduced Velázquez to the court. Velazquez’s first job was painting a portrait of Count-Duke of Olivares, who was so impressed that he recommended his services to King Philip IV himself. Velázquez became, in due course, the king’s go-to painter when he wanted a portrait of himself or his children. In a time when Spain was suffering financial hardships, Velázquez was the only painter in court who was getting paid a salary. It might have helped that he took on other roles, too, like wardrobe assistant and superintendent of palace works.
Velázquez had an assistant called Juan de Pareja, who was actually a slave, and who accompanied Velázquez on his trip to Italy in 1649. In 1650 Velázquez granted Juan his freedom, and the former slave went on to become a renowned artist in his own right.
Velázquez was not prolific; he is estimated to have produced between 110 and 120 known paintings, and no etchings or engravings. Only a few drawings are attributed to him.
Velázquez was given decoration responsibilities for Maria Theresa’s wedding to Louis XIV, which took place on the Island of Pheasants, a small swampy island in the Bidassoa. It could well be that this job was the death of him, because soon after his return to Madrid, he went down with a fever and died a few weeks later on August 6, 1660, at the age of 61. His wife Juana also died about a week later and was buried beside him.
Character birthday
Emma, a princess from another dimension who was brought to ours to be adopted by an unwitting couple in England to keep her safe from troubles embroiling her home at the time. For much of her life she was unaware of her origins. She grew up and attended university where she met and started a relationship with Daniel Moran (Sword Keeper). Soon after that, a delegation from her home world came to seek her out and take her home. It happened that portals between the dimensions could only be used by genetic variants, which meant Daniel could go with her.
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