October 15, 2014
Historical Compare and Contrast
Diego Velazquez and Peter Paul Rubens are two well-known painters who is famous for many of their artwork. Diego Velazquez has magnificent artwork; one of his masterpieces is Las Meninas “The Maid of Honor”. Peter Paul Rubens is also famous for numerous painting and his creative talent. “The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus,” is one of his prized possessions.
Diego Velazquez’s “Las Meninas” painting shows the viewer that there is something what seems to be children getting dressed up to have their picture taken, or portrait being painted. In this artwork the painter is also in the picture standing at the back, so the painting seems kind of awkward, but as I analyze the painting; the painter is …show more content…
Velazquez’s Las Meninas is a 1656 painting, in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. Las Meninas is Spanish for the Maids of honor. The portrait is of Infanta Margarita, the daughter of King Philip IV, and his second wife Mariana of Austria. Las Meninas allows the spectator to interact with the painting’s various points of view and therefore offers him a fuller understanding of the painting’s emotional and intellectual depth. Infanta Margarita looks as if she had dropped in to see Velazquez at work because her posture is settled and straight as everyone else and she looks as if she interrupted the painting section. She stops right next to him, at the center of the foreground of the painting, but she seems perplexed. There is a peculiar strangeness in Las Meninas. Infanta Margarita is definitely not posing for her portrait. If Velazquez initial painting wasn’t for the Infanta Margarita; then who was he painting? Velazquez’s technique of painting was inspired by Baroque. Baroque is the period and the style that used exaggerated motion in order to produce drama and tension. Velazquez ended up painting two painting because he was mesmerized by the uniqueness in the children behavior and he included