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A Study in the Art of Diego Velazquez By Dorothy Koppelman Continued: Part B |
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Eli Siegel, in his immortal Fifteen Questions, "Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites?" describes the central impetus to art and the effect of every work of art. What Velázquez felt, saw and what we see now is described in Mr. Siegel's question on "Universe and Object": Does every work of art have a certain precision about something; a certain concentrated exactness, a quality of particular existence?—and does every work of art, nevertheless, present in some fashion the meaning of the whole universe, something suggestive of wide existence, something that has an unbounded significance beyond the particular?  Velázquez
has looked at the perfection of that oval egg, held over that light, circular
dish, itself crossed by a dark knife and has seen the great meaning of
opposites—an eternal moment of "unbounded significance." Light and dark,
hard and soft, sharp outlines and obscured forms are composed. A young
person, somewhat modest, holds a heavy melon as he faces an older person.
Placing youth somewhat further back, gives one a sense of age, while age
itself, brilliantly lit, becomes more vividly in the present. The luminous,
whole egg and the softly spreading eggs being cooked, the heavy round melon
on the left, and the round dish on the right makes our eyes move back and
forth,
even though the stirring motion of the wooden spoon in the old woman's
hand is caught and made—in its sculptural quality—timeless. |
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| This is different from the way most women see the objects they use
every day in their kitchens. In consultations people study how to see objects
with the wonder and meaning they have.
Recently a New Jersey woman, Mrs. Eldridge, told us in a consultation how efficiently she managed her home, her part-time job, her garden; she seemed to whip things into shape on a whirlwind schedule. Mrs. Eldridge felt noble and martyred, but she did not like herself and she did not sound proud. When we asked if her husband had any criticism of her she said, "He says I act superior. I don't sit down and talk with him." Mrs. Eldridge's consultation trio suggested that she look at and study an object her husband cared for and could perhaps teach her about. This is what she wrote for her next consultation: "...My husband and I are having a wonderful time talking about hardware!... and I see the opposites in me," she wrote, "hardness and curve,...sharpness and roundness." Mrs. Eldridge was exuberant about how objects she had taken for granted were "so simple and complex—like me, like Harry and everything else that exists." When Diego Velázquez was not yet 23 his paintings had already attracted attention in his native Seville, and he went to Madrid where his work might be seen more widely. By the time he was 24 he had become, as the Metropolitan Museum's brochure of the exhibition of the artist's work puts it, |
  
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| In the "Free Poem on 'The Siegel Theory of Opposites' in Relation to
Aesthetics" in his book Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana: Poems, Eli Siegel honors, comprehends, explains and puts into proud music, the
painter's vision and his work. These are some lines:
Of Shakespeare—stern and delicate; alive: And so, at times, grotesque. The vision of What's here meets vision of what's far away— A thing reflected mingles with the here, The seen. When Hamlet is made one with space, It is like doings in Velázquez' work... |
Philip IV [click here for full screen picture] |
| The artist, critical of the tall monarch's assumed superiority, shows him with two equally tall spaces on either side. Velázquez sees the king in a true relation with space, which makes for both beauty and pride. Instead of accenting separation, in his technique he not only contrasts, he blends. On the right the sharp outline of the cape contrasts with the warm, but plain space, but the low shadow blends with the table legs; and the unadorned black figure has an anonymity that blends with space, but there are swift up and down motions with the legs outlined and low on the canvas. I think the artist is playful, too; the tall black hat on the light table is, as object, like the tall king on the light ground. But the great glory of this work is in the white paper held in its fold by one finger—it is so small, so not royal. The artist has painted its light edges with the same care as he painted the king's curl. |
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| There is a triangle made by the king's light head, going down each arm to his light hands; that triangle is like that of the humble, but brilliant paper. Velázquez has had the "magnificent humility" to see the abiding opposites of reality in the creases, the shadows, the curves and angles, the warmth and coolness of a folded piece of unwritten-on paper and the King of Spain. |
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Back: Part A ... Click here |
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