Diego Velazquez: Does Social Status Matter?

Does Social Status Matter?

One of Spain’s awe-inspiring painters in history, Diego Velazquez not only painted beautiful and detailed artwork, but also created a broad story for the viewer to recreate and reinvent. One such painting, according to the Prado Museum, is “Las Meninas,” in which he tells the story of Infanta Margarita, her little meninas, and of course her parents (“Museo del Prado”). Velazquez effectively uses baroque style, intricate colors, and accurate positions in “Las Meninas” to allude that social status is imperative.

First, Velasquez is famous for his baroque style paintings and in “Las Meninas” this style explains why social status was important to this time period, as well as the roles of all the characters in the painting ("Velázquez (1599 - 1660) - Spanish Baroque Painter"). The baroque style used is mainly seen in how the painting was made (“Baroque Period (art)”). For example, the painting is simple and the viewer knows what is going on in the painting at first glance. This technique allows Velazquez to portray his favoritism towards the royalty of Spain and how valuable they were to him. In addition to this idea, Velazquez’s style also portrays the role of religion during this time period. In this painting, he puts the religious figures of a nun and a friar in a shadow and in the corner of the piece. This explains the baroque style because painters during this time, not only Velazquez, wanted to bring back religion to art, however, not in a big way (“Baroque Period (art)”). He includes religious figures, but does not put them in the spotlight. Velazquez’s use of a simple setting and minimal use of religious figures shows that social status is mainly in relation to the royalty and not religion. In ad...

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...”). This mentality does not give insight to what it was like to be ruled by the king and queen if you did not have a high social status.

Diego Velazquez was a very influential painter during the baroque era ("Velázquez (1599 - 1660) - Spanish Baroque Painter"). His paintings display the regality of the nobility and show how great the Spanish royalty is. Although his views are biased, his paintings do tell a story, which leave the viewer curious and stumped on the interpretation of his paintings. Additionally, Velazquez leaves his viewers to wonder what Velazquez really wanted them to learn from his art, the glory of being royal, or how the viewer should appreciate art and its peculiarities. All in all Velazquez uses the elements of baroque style, detailed colors, and precise positioning to convey a message that having a high social status is very crucial.