Great Art Explained: Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez

Please don’t forget to ‘like’ and leave a comment (however short), as it REALLY helps promote the channel. My other channel, Great BOOKS Explained can be found here - youtube.com/@greatbooksexplained371 - thanks so much for your amazing support - James

Hundreds of years later and people are still debating how it all makes sense. What a genius.

I so look forward to your video's. Its like having a personal art history lesson each time. You are a wonderful teacher.

Your videos are a piece of art themselves!

I am glad i have someone who will explain me about paintings ☺☺

One of my favourite ways to quietly start a Saturday is to brew some coffee, pet a cat, then to be absorbed into a new video from GAE while I sip my coffee and energize for the day. It is a tradition which is dependent on the release of your new videos, or on my forgetting enough of an old one to require another viewing. It energizes me both intellectually and spiritually for the whole day, your attention to detail in unveiling all relevant aspects of a work from the mundane to the majestic. This series has helped me to deepen my appreciation of all art, of the world around me, and to see a secret beauty in anything my eyes can observe. I thank the whole team of GAE for enriching my life.

The amount of effort and research that goes into every video makes this channel a great work of art in itself.

A fantastic doc thanks for doing it!! I can’t wrap my head around how Velasquez could start with a blank canvas, paint without sketches, alla prima, and yet it results in something like ‘the crook of his arm being the exact vanishing point”. What a genius! I never get tired of learning more about Velasquez - awesome work thanks for everything you post!

Art, History, Culture, Biography... I just love how you incorporate so many aspects in your explanations and analysis of the painting to give a comprehenive idea of how it came about and why, and for us to fully understand what we are seeing. Thank you!

The notion of "picture within a picture" in these paintings immediately reminds me of the Baroque of literature. The complex structure and Art as Play, the allegorical nature of the works, their concerns of the human destiny, these are all shared in the two fields and precursory to what are considered modern art.

I live in a place where art in general isn’t easily accessible through a museum. So I always get excited every time a new video is up❤

This video could've ended with a video of you two looking at that painting - just like Velazquez, you're raising your profession to new heights

"I am shaken" every time I complete watching one your short films. I wish I could adequately express my gratitude in words. I'm left only with the ability to say, "Thank you very, very much for the fascinating insight & enlightenment you provide each time you upload. I am, indeed, most obliged.

One of my favorite works, by one of my favorite Spanish artists... Thank you for this fine description!

I can't wait for you to tackle the depths and complexity of Hogarth's "A rake's progress" There's so much in those paintings that at first glance go unseen. This was brilliant, and I look forward to future episodes.

I love your videos I have prints in my house of many of the paintings you’ve explained and showcased 🕊️🙏💕🇬🇧

The first time I saw this painting at the Museo del Prado I was astonished but I didn't know why. Now I can't wait to revisit it!!! Thank you for your great explanation😊.

First visited the Prado as an 18 year old in 1973. The Spanish family I was staying with gave me an overview of Las Meninas and I have always been fascinated by the painting and Velazquez. It was obviously a source of pride to them and a part of the Spanish consciousness. I am so happy that I had the opportunity to see it without the hordes of tourists that are everywhere now and in my memory, it was quite an intimate viewing. Thank you for your research. I'll now watch it again!

Of course, both things are probably true: King Philip IV and María de Austria could be both in the room and the subject of the enormous painting by Diego Velázquez—the only question then is what is the mirror reflecting, the painting or the actual people? (Maybe that’s what you meant.) I do agree with you, actually—Velázquez isn’t painting us, obviously. It just makes sense that the king and queen are there. (And it’s not like mirrors in paintings have to obey the laws of physics—Vermeer’s The Music Lesson famously didn’t, perhaps for more overtly “psychological” reasons.) Another dazzling video, James! The explanation of “implicit space” and the use of graphics to illustrate that just nails it and is very satisfying for that reason. I can’t imagine that any of the “meta-” aspects of the painting were entirely lost on the king and queen and the court—they weren’t idiots. It had to have given them a frisson of delight to get, even if a bit unconsciously, that the painting was “a painting about painting” (arguably the first) and that they were in the painting—and they could just enjoy it.

I love that in such a short time you manage to not only explain but completely contextualise art