Velázquez @ Museo del Prado, Madrid

Zoom Course

Velázquez @ Museo del Prado, Madrid Spain

Art around the world—live with Luca!

Date: Minimum 5 Friends - Choose the date, then CONTACT US to schedule

Time: TBD

Expert: Luca Pietrosanti, Art Historian & Expert Guide

Fees: $25/session

Doing Good: 10% of net proceeds to Muri Sicuri 

Itinerary

Join Luca to travel the world virtually, to explore art, history, and “what’s happening today.”

Our destination for Art Around the World—Live with Luca: Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain

“I would rather be the first painter of common things than second in higher art.” - Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez Museo del Prado

Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez, Spain’s greatest painter was also one of the supreme artists of all time. A master of technique, highly individual in style, Velázquez may have had a greater influence on European art than any other painter.

Although Velazquez was deeply embedded in Baroque tradition, his work exhibited points of departure that would eventually come to differentiate him from the other court painters of the time and deposit him into the realm of fiercely individualistic artists. Instead of the typical glamorization of his subjects, he painted with an interest in naturalism - a direct and precise realism that two hundred years later, after the advent of photography, might have been deemed photorealistic.

Velázquez is often named a key influence on the art of Édouard Manet and the Impressionists. Calling Velázquez the "painter of painters," Manet admired the bold combination of the free and loose brushstrokes that characterized his style even as he held true to his training in the Baroque academia of his contemporaries.

Prado Museum, the art museum in Madrid, houses the world’s richest and most comprehensive collection of Spanish painting as well as masterpieces of other schools of European painting, especially Italian and Flemish art. Let’s explore!

Resources:

• The Guardian Article: Velázquez Las Meninas 
• The Smithsonian Article: Diego Velázquez Life and Legacy  
• Museo del Prado - Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez
• http://www.diegovelazquez.net

Image by wikicommons.org

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