Welcome to One Wonderful Present, the place Observer highlights a lately opened exhibition at a museum not in New York Metropolis, a spot we all know and love that already receives loads of consideration.
It’s unimaginable to separate the work of Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) from his relationship with King Philip IV. Philip wrote letters of introduction in order that Velázquez may go to check portray in Italy, which had no small half in growing his sense of colour, composition and melodrama. The painter got here to really feel so near the king that he even painted himself in his portrait of his daughter, Las Meninas (1656), which might be Spain’s best portray. It’s a lesson to us all about how straightforward life may be in case you cozy as much as the boss, and maybe a useful tip to King Charles III, who might need obtained a greater official portrait if his personal courtroom painter didn’t so clearly despise him.
The work of Velázquez lately went on view on the Blanton Museum of Artwork in “Spirit & Splendor: El Greco, Velázquez, and the Hispanic Baroque,” which brings collectively the work of these two Spanish greats alongside Francisco de Zurbarán and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. These work are paired with these of Latin American artists like Luis Juárez, Baltasar de Echave Ibía, José de Páez and Melchor Pérez Holguín. Throughout two centuries and 57 items from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library in New York Metropolis, the works on present reveal how Spanish portray got here to be translated for the Americas, and the debt the medium as a complete owes to the Iberian Peninsula’s intense model of Baroque.
There may be nearly an excessive amount of to get pleasure from right here, particularly in case you’re the type of one who lectures these planning a visit to Madrid that a minimum of two, maybe three days ought to be allotted for the Prado. Velázquez’s Portrait of a Little Lady (c.1648-1652) presents a pleasant distinction to his depiction of the Infanta Margarita Teresa, and is one in all solely two portraits Velázquez manufactured from non-royal youngsters. The place the princess has white blonde hair and rosy cheeks, a mature and bemused smile on the nook of her mouth, this dark-haired little lady appears cautious. They’re even going through reverse instructions.
El Greco’s Pietà (c.1574-1576) looks like a equally democratic gesture. You possibly can actually really feel the burden of Christ’s physique as it’s lifted by Mary and two feminine mourners. All three wrestle, bearing daring blue sashes that distinction the lifeless man’s pallor. Mary’s anguish is fairly terrible in case you select to have a look at it: her face on the similar stage because the crosses on Golgotha. These are El Greco fashion, in fact, ever lengthy and additional extreme.
We flip to Mexico to carry again the glamour. The Wedding ceremony at Cana (1696) by Nicolás Correa makes use of a shimmering mother-of-pearl, a merger of European class with New World craft traditions. Two folks boast precise halos, however everybody appears to be glowing—
“Spirit & Splendor: El Greco, Velázquez, and the Hispanic Baroque” is on view at Blanton Museum of Artwork by way of February 1, 2026.
Extra exhibition evaluations
