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Great Art Explained: Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez

2024-07-26 Film & Animation
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Great Art Explained
Great Art Explained
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Description

My other channel, Great Books Explained here - https://www.youtube.com/@greatbooksexplained371 Please consider supporting this channel on Patreon (and getting exclusive content), thanks! https://www.patreon.com/user?u=53686503 or if you prefer a one-off donation - https://paypal.me/GreatArtExplained?country.x=GB&locale.x=en_GB Alternatively, every video has a "thanks" button under it- I appreciate it! Las Meninas, Diego Velázquez’s portrait of a Spanish princess and her entourage is one of, if not the most widely discussed paintings in western painting. Every viewing raises more questions, and every answer is followed by a dense network of meanings. It is not only a high point of realism in painting, a perfect life-like depiction of the Spanish court - it is also a complex meditation on painting itself. It’s a spell-binding work that is concerned with how we view a painting, and how the subjects in a painting view us. IMPORTANT! Subscribe and click the bell icon to be notified! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCePD... I would like to thank all my Patreon supporters, in particular Alan Stewart, Alexander Velser, Alyssa Phillips, AMSN, Anja Zeutschel, Bria Nicole Art, David Asabreu, Christa Sawyer, Eric Mann, Erique K, Francis Song, Griffin Evans, Hugo Moita, Jemma Theivendran, John Baer, Jon Hanzen, Julio Cardenas, Karim Hopper, Kibibi Shaw, Louise Tait, Monte St Johns, New Curiosity, Paul Ark, Paul Waterman, Sagar Saxena, Sean Welgemoed, Stefan Paisson, Stephen Beresford, Tanya Moore, Theresa Garfink, Toni Ko, Tyler Wittreich, and Will Dew's-Power. "What a brilliant series this is" - Stephen Fry on Twitter SUBTITLES I input the English subtitles myself but I rely on volunteers to do subtitles for other languages and I really appreciate it - just contact me at [email protected] Spanish subtitles by Alma Perdomo (Gracias!) CREDITS Opening Animation and Title Sequence by Brian Adsit (instagram https://instagram.com/brian_vfx?utm_m... and Behance www.behance.com/badsit88) YouTube artist instruction videos used with permission. They are all brilliant channels! Old Dirty Masters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2MA0Yq1qWw Painting the Light https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c5hG4mEVb0&t=1s Luis Borrero, Visual Artist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqy4JUfT4Yk Recording by Robert Lewis (Thank you!) VIDEOS All the videos, songs, images, and graphics used in the video belong to their respective owners and I or this channel do not claim any right over them. MUSIC Tomas Luis de Victoria - Ave Maria BOOKS Velazquez – The Technique of Genius - by Jonathan Brown Velázquez: Las Meninas and the Late Royal Portraits by Javier Portús Velázquez (World of Art) by Richard Verdi Velázquez by Norbert Wolf The Order of Things: An archaeology of the human sciences (Routledge Classics) by Michel Foucault Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

Top Comments (10)

@seriouslywhatever1031 2024-07-26

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

486
@gobnaitaine5103 2024-07-26

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

347 2 replies
@HRM.H 2024-07-26

Your videos are a piece of art themselves!

237 3 replies
@joesullivan9086 2024-07-27

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.

196 6 replies
@Lessulie1 2024-08-13

my headcanon is that Velazquez painted this as a personal gift to the king, and the king is supposed to look at this painting and feel like he is looking at those people in real life. It's as if the king held a camera and captured that moment in time, and it's something that he'll look back on with nostalgia over the years, similar to how we look at old photos.

191 3 replies
@susanagarcia4728 2024-08-25

When Dali was asked by a journalist what he would save in case of a fire in El Prado  museum, he answered: "the air contained in Las Meninas". You really get the illusion of perceiving the dust particles floating in the air. If you turn the painting around you can see how much space Velazquez dedicates to capturing that "air". As a madrilian, I feel lucky to enjoy this painting often. Many thanks for the video, it is a masterclass indeed!

102
@GreatArtExplained 2024-07-26

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 - https://www.youtube.com/@greatbooksexplained371 - thanks so much for your amazing support - James

91 10 replies
@adarshs6200 2024-07-27

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

78 1 replies
@esskay1513 2024-07-28

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

30
@gregorymatthew1217 2026-01-04

“There are two ways to dislike art; one is to dislike it; the other, to like it intellectually” - Oscar Wilde

10

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