Velázquez’s ‘The Toilet of Venus’: A Baroque Masterpiece
The Toilet of Venus by Diego Velázquez
Spanish Baroque Painting, 1648
The National Gallery of London
Oil on canvas. 122.5 x 177 cm.
Genre: Mythological painting. The topic was started by Venetian painters in the previous century (Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus and Titian’s Venus of Urbino or Venus Recreating the Music), but Velázquez deals with it with prodigious naturalness and originality.
Topic: Lying on rich gray sheets on a bed protected by a crimson curtain, a naked woman, seen from behind, is absorbed in the contemplation of her own face in a mirror. The mirror is supported by a winged boy, also naked, leaning on the same bed. The characters are Venus, goddess of beauty, and her son Cupid, god of love. The mirror allows the viewer to glimpse the face of the goddess, which was originally hidden.
Composition: The female body in the foreground pervades the picture. From the left foot of Venus, lines begin their journey, following the contours of the female body. The lines underscore sensuality, repeating her curves in the tissues that surround her to the right, gliding through the folds of the blanket and leaning body contours, and upward to the edges of the red curtain. The figure of Cupid closes the composition vertically and in a balanced way. The space contained in the painting is small. The bottom is closed off by the curtain, further emphasizing a sense of intimacy and closeness.
Light: Warm, bright light involves the ivory body of Venus in a perfect mastery of aerial perspective.
Color: Predominantly white, black, and red, but in an extraordinary range of hues. We also appreciate a touch of ocher and pink ribbon. The large red spot of the curtain at the bottom of the painting differentiates it from the space in which the action unfolds, and the gray sheet highlights the pearly body of the goddess.
Graphic: The outlines are clear. The brushwork is sharp but with little stain release.
Style: Baroque characteristics include a composition with a predominance of diagonal lines and curves, the use of a dominant color to bring unity to the painting, and a lack of clarity in meaning. However, it also displays the classicism of Velázquez: balance of lines, masterful use of color, subtle light, delicate touch, and an original approach to the subject.
Meaning: The interpretation of the picture is complex, as befits the Baroque style and the way in which Velázquez discusses mythological painting, humanizing the myth. At first, it looks like a scene from the toilet of Venus, which is rare since the goddess was usually not represented in private. Certain elements are missing. The naturalness is such that it seems we are contemplating not a goddess but a woman who remains outside the painter-beholder’s intrusion. Is the mythological theme an excuse for dodging strict censorship of a female nude? It’s a good explanation until we discover that the sensual beauty of the body contradicts the real vulgarity in the face, cruelly exposed by the mirror, whose symbolic significance is twofold: Truth and Vanity. Velázquez brilliantly puts us back on the plane of the symbolic. In this sense, the way Cupid holds the mirror, with hands folded and a pink ribbon on them, suggests that he is a “voluntary prisoner” and symbolizes the way that love remains with beauty. Love, Beauty, Truth, Vanity… this is the reflection that we face.
Influence: The way Velázquez tackled this issue allowed later painters to perform classical nudes more freely, without the thematic constraints that the author had to dodge. In the 18th century, Goya painted The Naked Maja, depicting a woman, and Manet, in the 19th century, in Olympia, showed the nude of a prostitute.
The Painter and His Times
Despite the economic and political crisis, Spain in the 17th century experienced a period of cultural and artistic splendor (“Golden Age”). The clientele of artists were the churches and convents, as the nobles and the Court preferred foreign artists. Therefore, most of the artistic production was Counter-Reformation religious painting, portraiture, still life (though still low), and almost non-existent landscape, mythological, and historical painting. Nudes were commissioned by collectors (aristocrats and kings) and needed an excuse not to be considered sinful.
Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) is the best painter of the Baroque in Spain and a summit of world art. In his first period in Seville, he created “tenebrist,” highly realistic still lifes (The Old Woman Cooking Eggs and The Water Carrier). He moved to Madrid in 1623 as court painter to Philip IV. He made two trips to Italy (in 1629 and 1648), where he completed his training. He painted portraits of the king and his family (Philip IV, Count-Duke of Olivares, Prince Baltasar Carlos), on horseback or hunting, and portraits of clowns (Child of Vallecas). His masterpiece is Las Meninas, a family group portrait of Philip IV. He also painted mythological paintings (The Drunkards, The Forge of Vulcan, The Toilet of Venus, The Spinners), historical paintings (The Surrender of Breda), and landscapes (Villa Medici), which represented a novelty in the Spanish panorama.
Analysis of Christ in Majesty from Sant Climent de Taüll
Gothic Painting
Analysis Material
This painting is done using tempera as a technique and applied to the wall. This technique is called “al fresco,” as it requires preparing the wall with mortar and painting before it dries. Originally, this work was created for the apse of the church of Sant Climent de Taüll, in the Catalan province of Lleida. Later, to protect it and prevent its deterioration, it was moved to the National Museum of Catalan Art in Barcelona, where it can be seen today.
Formal Analysis: A system called “spot colors” is used, consisting of marking the outlines of the silhouettes in bold and filling the interior with a color. The result is a very synthetic painting, very simple technically, but it manages to create a great effect on the features and create great expressiveness. It excels in formal settings, rigid lines, and the parallelism of these, showing a strong influence of Byzantine art and miniature book decorations.
Meaningful Analysis: It represents the figure of Christ seated on a circle and enrolled in a mandorla, a pointed oval. These represent the dominion of Christ over the cosmos and its relationship to the spiritual world. He appears, therefore, as Christ in Majesty, blessing with his right hand and holding in his left hand a book that reads: “EGO SUM LUX MUNDI” (I am the light of the world). Also in the mandorla, at shoulder height, one can read two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and omega, alluding to the saying of Christ: “I am the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end,” since both letters are the first and last of the Greek alphabet. Surrounding the figure of Christ are circles inscribed with the figures of the four evangelists, the Tetramorph, the representation of the vision of Revelation as seen by St. John: an angel, a bull, a lion, and an eagle, which are the symbols of St. Matthew, St. Luke, St. Mark, and St. John who, with his writings, gave this testimony to the life and divinity of Jesus.
Comment: Romanesque painting has a primarily educational purpose: to teach the fundamental principles of Christianity and the nature of the almighty divinity that God had at a time in which both the forces of nature and the life and destiny of human beings depended only on Him. Fear of such a supreme deity is clearly reflected in this painting of Sant Climent de Taüll, created in the 12th century AD, in 1123. To enhance the character of divine omnipotence, resources such as geometry, stiffness, immobility, and lack of movement are used, accentuating the solemnity and majesty of God.
The themes represented in Romanesque murals are also of Christ in Majesty, the Epiphany, and the Adoration of the Magi, like the one painted for the church of Santa Maria de Taüll, also now in the National Art Museum of Catalonia in Barcelona. This theme develops the superior aspect of Christ over kings, the subordination of temporal power to the divine. The figure of the Virgin appears as Christ’s throne. She sits, with the child on her legs, as the role assigned at the moment is having served as the headquarters of the throne or matter from which Christ was born.
Other key remains of Romanesque mural painting are those decorating the Royal Pantheon of the Kings of León, in the church of San Isidoro. The topics listed are religious, such as the Annunciation of the angels to the shepherds, or profane, as representing the months of the year. Romanesque painting has another fundamental section in front of the altar. In this case, the painting is executed on board, and the key issues are the lives of saints to whom churches are dedicated. One of the best-known works is the front of San Quirce and St. Julita, from 1100, also preserved in the National Art Museum of Catalonia.