Velázquez and his Enigmatic Masterpiece.

Las Meninas was painted by Diego Velázquez in 1656, and it was a private painting for the monarch as a personal gift from its genius subject (and friend), not a painting to order. We know the location, a room in the first floor of the south side of el Alcázar de Madrid, the present-day Palacio Real (or “Palacio de Oriente”). That room is where Velázquez painted, it was his atelier, his workshop. What are the infanta Margarita and her meninas doing there? What is the occasion?

A study by a Spanish architect, Antonio Sáseta, has solved the meaning of the painting (in my opinion), its “argument”: the occasion is the spectacle of light projected on the hidden (for the spectator of the painting) and massive canvas. We know the point of view of the painting cannot be reflected on the mirror where their majesties (and parents of the infanta Margarita) appear. Their majesties, also, would never have seated there to be painted, in front of people. That was the workshop of the painter, and no monarch went to the painter, but the painter to the monarch. That reflection cannot be their majesties (and the spectator). How can then that reflection appear? The solution is the man on the stairs, at the end of the picture. That point is also the vanishing point of the picture. What is that man doing there?

As it is on the south side of the palace, the light that we see on the first plane shows that the time is afternoon, but the light that appears behind that man at the end of the room shows a contradiction with the other one on the first plane. No one has explained that fact of the painting. Some have said that that man at the end is coming or going or just staying there, but the source of the light has not been explained. For instance, Ballesteros Arranz in his Velázquez y el tiempo (2015) says (my translation):

We should not forget the chief harbinger [of the Queen] José Nieto who unexpectedly appears through a strange and illuminated door at the back, opened to a third time that no one knows where it leads

That is the key this Spanish architect, Antonio Sáseta, has solved. What José Nieto is doing is following the orders of the painter Velázquez, the Kingʼs chief harbinger, his superior at the palace. Nieto is there at the stairs with his right arm up, not because he is going or coming or just staying there for no purpose; what he is doing is moving a mirror which reflects the light of the sun from outside. (That is why that piece of curtain, unexplained on that side of the stairs, is a reflection of the mirror behind Nieto, of part of the curtains on the wall we do not see). The light, reflected on that mirror controlled by Nieto, goes to another mirror on the wall (which we do not see) and then comes inside at the back of the room. At the back of the room that light is received by another mirror which reflects the light unto a portrait, a miniature, and due to a lens or magic lamp, that miniature is projected on the hidden and huge canvas whose back we see. The hidden canvas is functioning then not as a canvas to be painted, but as a screen. The reason why the room is so dark at the back is due to that reason: to let the light coming from Nieto be projected on that huge canvas, the screen. A Baroque cinema to entertain the infanta Margarita and her retinue. What we see reflected on the mirror is what is shown on the screen: their majesties. We know that picture cannot be a portrait, because of the huge size of the hidden canvas, and at that time no painting like that could have existed (and there did not exist). The picture of their majesties is a projection at the center of the canvas, or screen. Velázquez, the magician. Why did Velázquez painted himself in the painting?

It was a self-portrait for the King, his friend. As Antonio Sáseta says, the painting would be perfect with the infanta and her retinue by itself. It was the theme of the portrait: an afternoon of Baroque cinema with the infanta Margarita. So, what is doing Velázquez there? That room was his room, his workshop, his atelier. By painting himself there, he was painting what he has done, a magic show for the palace, but also saying to the King, ʻI am your friend, and I am an intellectual, not a vulgar worker (as “work” was considered then base). Here I am showing you, the queen, and your daughter, on a fine winter day of 1656. Thank you for your friendship. This is my gift for you.ʼ Three years later, the painter would be conceded the title of the Cross of Calatrava, the one we see on the painterʼs chest. A title of nobility. A sign of honour and power. The painter added that modification to the portrait then. One year later, 1660, he died. 

    There are three corrections in the painting: a change in the right hand of the infanta, another in the right leg of the Italian boy (dwarf). These two veiled superpositions induced movement in the viewer, and Velázquez had used this technique in his paintings before. But the third change is unexplained. There was a figure who was to the right of the painter. As Sáseta tells us, that position would have been a huge error if Velázquez decided later to change it. Why did he change it? Well, and here it is the magic touch of the mastermind: at that position to the right of Velázquez he would have been blocking the projection: and then what the viewer would have seen in the mirror would not have been their majesties, but the back of the painter! By changing that first position, invisible to the sight, but confirmed by X-rays, to the visible second position, the painter is saying: ʻNow you donʼt see what is on the canvas-screen by looking at the mirror, but by changing my position to the left, now you do.ʼ This correction of positions confirmed that the mirror reflects what is on the canvas-screen, not the image of the viewer as their majesties.

What the painter is seeing (us, the spectatorʼs point of view) is himself: he was painting himself. As he painted always with the model before him, there were another two more mirrors: those two mirrors would reflect the right image of the painter, and we see him as he was: right-handed. The painting shows three moments in time: the show of images projected on the canvas-screen with Nieto at the back, and the moment when the spectacle of light has ended and everyone is moving and people coming. The infanta Margarita is offered water, the Italian boy is going to strike the dog, the two adults whose work is to be with the infanta talk to each other, and then, another time altogether different: the time when the painter paints himself by looking at the mirrors before him, including himself as intellectual, as the mind of this show of light –and painting. This room was his workshop. Velázquez is not painting on the hidden canvas: he is too far away from it to do so. He has painted himself there as a self-portrait of the very same painting we see the occasion was located: Las Meninas.

We could add here the direction of the view: sight moves to the vanishing point where Nieto is with the mirror —> the sun outside —> the reflection back to the mirror on the wall (which sight do not see) to the interior at the back of the room —> light striking the miniature and augmented by the lens or magic lamp —> the image on the canvas-screen —> its reflection on the mirror which we see of their majesties —> the infanta Margarita, full of light. The End. In some way, we can see the infanta Margarita as the first movie star in History: the first Baroque cinema star in History. For that is what the painting is all about, not the spectacle. The painting is Margarita as its star. And the painter as the mastermind of it all. A truly great present to his master, the King Philip IV in 1656, when Spain had lost her European dominion and France took the lead. Louis XIV may be the Sun King, but the infanta Margarita is today the Star Infanta, the Star Princess. No painting is as great as Las Meninas in the history of painting. Now we know the argument, what has happened there. What the painting is celebrating. Velázquez as director of light, images, painting, protected and favored by the Royal Family, and the Royal Family itself. With the old King Philip IV (which did not want to be painted anymore by Velázquez due to old age) seen in a mirror. Las Meninas celebrates light, space, air, time, the world as a show and spectacle, with Man (Margarita) at its centre. Las Meninas is art about art. Remember, this was the Age of Wit.

            

           

              

After the 1984 X-rays, we know the first position
would have shown in the mirror the back of the
painter. Such a gross mistake would be
unworthy of the genius. The reason
for that change now is clear.