There are so much to say about Velazquez from this trip. Let’s break them down a bit and see how they work together.
Drawing is the foundation for everything else. Without accurate drawing, we won’t be able pinpoint the exact lines, or the lack of. But there is more to accurate drawing, which is to omit certain things so the illusion of space is more obvious.
Sargent does that really well. Sargent understands that what’s important and what’s not important, and paint accordingly. For example, from distance, you don’t need to fully render a ring, or the individual pearls on the necklace. You need to abstract the shapes, and distill the most important value contrast, and get the value contrast right, then you can paint a lot with very little.
Abstraction, abstraction, abstraction. How we abstract indicates what kind of artist we are.
The conversation with Paul really makes me understand the importance of soft edges. The biggest take away is the distance from the picture plane to the subject. If everything is very clear, that means the viewer is very close to the object. If everything is blurry, then the distance is much larger. Take the mirror image of King Philip IV and his wife on the wall in Las Meninas, and see how blurry they are. That’s what soft edges mean.
But besides the soft edges, I think Velazquez used wet on wet techniques too. The dazzling brush works on top of the dried layers indicates that he leveraged the brushy and free looking brushes to bring more energy to the painting.
Use long brushes to paint. Use the shoulder and elbow, not too much in the fingers.
Squint to see the soft edges!
The direction and orientation of the planes are super important. It really communicates the form in space, and we are in the space depiction business.
Velazquez use color shrift alone to indicate plane changes.
If Velazquez paints light, and the atmospheric effects, then what can I do with light to paint what I want?
