"Las Meninas" by Diego velázquez, were written on the pictures
ARTinvestment.RU   06 августа 2020

According to a recent study of the painting, when it was created, Velasquez has not done without the help of the camera-обскуры

One of the most famous paintings of Spanish painting of the XVII century continues to reveal its secrets. After in 2013 it became clear that a small copy of "Menin", held in the UK, which has long been considered the work of the son-in-law of the artist (and his disciple) Juan Batista martínez del Mazo, is partly the work of Velazquez, experts have begun re-study of this work. Studies regarding, primarily, the study of the creative method of the artist on the stages of its preparatory work led to unexpected conclusions.

Professor Miguel Usandizaga, specialist Spanish school of architecture in Valle and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, claims to have found evidence that the creation of the composition and especially the complex schemes of prospects in the "Meninas" of velázquez used the camera-обскуру (the progenitor of the camera). According to Usandizaga, before embarking on a big painting, velázquez used the small "English" canvas as a kind of negative future picture, placing it in the box camera and directly into the it made the layout of the new composition. "Then he used this work, transferring the image to a larger canvas, which then created his masterpiece," says Usandizaga.

To prove his theory, Usandizaga used the computer on which you have imposed on each other and compared photos of both works. "When comparing two versions of the painting, we discovered that the guides are perspective and straight lines that define the structure of the space of the painting, were, with the exception of differences in scale, almost identical." On this basis, Usandizaga argues that the situation in which every line of one image so it corresponds to a different, it is impossible to achieve with the naked eye and can only be achieved with the camera-обскуры. This, in other, linked by the fact that "a copy of the Dorset", according to the study, were created in two stages – first was written back plan – background and perspective, and the figure was added later.

Typically, these preparatory drawings from the camera-обскуры was considered as working material and rarely preserved by the authors. However, "instead of trying to destroy evidence of his effective, but not necessarily appreciate, practice, Velasquez, it seems, wanted out of it [the canvas from the camera-обскуры] a bit of good," asked the son-in-law to finish it images of Royal figures, corresponding to the complete composition, in order later to sell the work as an independent work.

Despite the fact that the use of technical devices, including cameras-обскуры, was for artists of the XVII century (and earlier eras) is quite common – for example, David Hockney argued in his book that it was used Vermeyer, Caravaggio, Rembrandt and van Eyck – informed art historians, it was believed that velázquez created their works without the aid of some-либо auxiliary means.

Maria Kuznetsova, AI

Sources: sfltimes.com