This entrancing painting appears in Animal Crossing where it is titled “Solemn Painting”.
We know little about the backstory of the painting; however, we know that Diego Velázquez painted this in 1656, in the room pictured in the painting, and we have identified all of the figures present. The maids-of-honor, or Meninas, are shown attending the Infanta Margarita Teresa, Princess of Spain. The two ladies, María Agustina Sarmiento and Isabel de Velasco, and the princess are forefronts in the image; the viewer’s eye notices the pale silver the girl is wearing and her stark, blonde hair. Receding into the right of the canvas are two dwarves and a dog. The painter is to the left, working on a massive wood-backed canvas covering most of that side. The lady-in-waiting Marcela de Ulloa stands in shadow, talking to an attendant, while the queen’s chamberlain, José Nieto Velázquez, pauses on the stairs leading out.
One odd detail stands out from the setting’s dark walls: a small framed mirror in the very back of the room, reflecting two faces and a red curtain. The reflections are of Philip IV, King of Spain and Portugal, and his wife, Mariana of Austria.
Now here is where things get tricky.
The characters’ placement is odd because they are on the bottom half of the painting. The remaining half is shrouded in shadow and does not have distinctive features; even the wall images are indistinct. Usually, in paintings, the artist groups the people near the center of the canvas against a wall or a curtain; this diverges and swaps.
There is debate on what role the viewer plays. For instance, do we see the painting through the king and queen’s point, or do we instead stand to the pair’s right as an attendant? Although people widely believe that Velázquez is painting the king and queen, some writers note that the portrait is unusually large and is about the same size as Las Meninas.
Although there are many views on what the painting means to say, we can agree that this painting is rich in variety, and the mirror enhances the experience. So what do you think of this painting? Is it just a bland painting you would find in the average museum, or a study on a philosophy that invites the viewer to contemplate depth and their relation to the view? That is for you to decide.
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