Baroque Art: Valesquez, part 1: a note of explanation

Rik asked me to explain what there is about Las Meninas  that moves me.  My response:

1.  I don't get a kick out of the painting itself.

2.  To paint your self painting the pic, while you look on from the background, is a double-conceit, claver for the time, and I admire that.

3.  The Royal Family must have ben really ugly, since in what I suppose is a glamorized version of them, they are ugly.  And kings in them days (as now, come to think of it) could chop heads of at will.  Took some guts, I imagine.  The Rule of Law, for all it's defects, is better to live with than to live in the many lands today where it does not prevail.

4.  I like what Picasso and followers did with the painting.  The string gives a good clear history of art since we were kids. 

Here are some uneducated notes on some of the paintings from 1957 forward:


The undated Picasso represents a colossal investment of time, is inventive and somehow compelling, and unintelligible to me.  I've tried to like Picasso as I've tried to like jazz, and failed; and still I can't turn away from him.

The Vietnam war ended on April 30, 1975, the year in which Cristobal Toral's D’après Las Meninas,  was painted.  I don't know how the war affected Toral but I know how it affected me.

There are lots of picture elements to look at in this 1987 work by  Joel Peter Witkin, entitled Las Meninas (Self Portrait). It's a moving piece.  I feel a kinship with Witkins, and later will explore other of his works.

After the clutter of the original painting and the previous works I can understand the desire for open spaces in this 1991 painting, but still . . . .

This 2005 painting by Thomas Struth  does give the feel of a modern art museum.  Other artists have captured this feel, too.  For those of us stuck in the Hinterland the feel is important though I don't suppose Struth had us in mind when he painted  Las Meninas by Velasquez (Prado).

Abe and I can form a civil union on January 1, coming.  I guess it will be called being "unionized".  I wonder if the new law is broad enough to allow us to include goggle in our union.  I love google.  From 2008.

And finally, Miss Monroe, with her entourage, makes her appearance, and I like it.  I guess it's Miss Monroe; might be any number o f more modern "personalities."  Look what Gérard Rancinan has done to poor old Velasquez.  No respect; or perhaps none for the modern cameraman.