Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter born in Seville June 6 1599 to August 6 1660; he was a leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was a contemporary artist of the Baroque period and a highly important portrait artist. As well as painting numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted a variety of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures and commoners, all depicted differently in his oil paintings.
The art piece that I will be deconstructing is called "The Waterseller of Seville" and dates back from 1618-1622. It is an oil painting and most well known as one of the greatest Seville paintings. The painting depicts a water seller and two customers of which the younger boy is holding a glass from the man and a shadowed man drinking in the background. Two key objects in the painting are the vast circular containers which almost appear to be looming out of the painting, the shiny surfaces make these really stand out and create a focus of the water. I think the most important part of this image is the freshly poured glass of water which is being handed to the boy, what may be difficult to see is the glass contains a fig which was believed to freshen the water and make it more appealing.
The elements in this piece which I believe to be of most importance and are colours and tones combined with shape and space. The whole painting is covered with shading and tones which gives it a real depth of life; it gives it a realistic sense which in itself creates movement of how the transaction may be going on. This sense of light and dark works very well with the spacing in the picture, the 2 men, boy and the 2 large containers all have their separate spacing which gives us the ability to truly appreciate the techniques of Velazquez and his ability to highlight individual symbols of importance.
The colours in the painting convey a very natural and earth like sense which tells us these people probably are not very wealthy and more commoners. In key areas Velazquez has utilized the sense of texture to identify the detail in the scene, for example; the collar of the young boy is very crumpled and ragged which gives us a hint to what his life may be like. The depiction of the seller is another important aspect of how Velazquez has used the formal elements to inform his work, the man’s face looks battered, deeply sunken and riddled with wrinkles of age which speaks of long years of experience. His old plain clothes take up a large area of the image with a subtle brown gradient that contrasts against the water containers.
The composition and depth of the artwork creates quite a calm atmosphere which may be relevant to the technique that has been portrayed in the painting, I have come to believe that Velazquez is trying to represent the sense of respect he has for the poor and their lifestyle. I think this is reflected in the elegance of the composition and harmony between the figures, however the expressions of the man and the boy seem distant especially the water seller himself; it seems to convey that he almost just went along with his job rather than showing a passion for it. These expressions seem very realistic showing the importance of what it was like in their time; to me the painting creates a strong meaning of what it was like in the past and also the simplicity of water but how much it can mean.
Velazquez has truly captured an original and unique scene without enhancing it or changing its meaning, the natural expressions and attention to detail on clothing and objects creates a balance between the spacing of each symbol. The artwork to me is very important as it shows how we have changed, what principles we have and how we look at the difference between modern societies in terms of wealth. I feel this way because of how Velazquez has looked at this situation, this may have been a very typical scene even one that does not signify importance but he has taken a great deal of time and respect to portray what really happens and the fundamental building blocks of how we come to live. Velazquez has shown true attention to detail not just in his painting techniques but how he intends for us to interpret it and what feelings we may take away from his painting. My final thought is how he has used his ability to form such an emotional and well thought through picture from what is fundamentally just a man selling water to a boy and a few containers in what appears to be a pub.
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