本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛很久以前看过一篇关于委拉斯凯兹的名作《宫娥》的研究性文章。 作者Jonathan Brown是美国著名的研究西班牙绘画的艺术史家。 《宫娥》是委拉斯凯兹（Diego Velazquez）的代表作之一，这幅作品是历史上有名的几个直到现在主题都还没被完全理解的名作之一。 画家用了极其隐讳的语言，通过画面巧妙的布局，使这幅画的主题变得捉摸不透。 这幅画要表现什么，作者想传达的讯息是什么，至今都是艺术史上争议极大的话题。 Brown用很详尽的资料和例子从作品分析、绘画技巧、画家的个人风格、创作的年代和历史背景等方面，以个人立场分析了这幅画的主题和含义。 文章很精彩，随手作了一些摘要。
On the Meaning of Las Meninas
Las Meninas seems to evade the grasp of both intuitive and rational understanding. The reason for this apparent mystique lies in the contradiction between form and subject. No single interpretation of the subject has ever satisfied every point of view.
Historical Background and Introduction
-- In 1949, Charles de Tolnay published an article in which he “read” Las Meninas as an allegory of artistic creation, an ideological statement, concerning the social status of the art of painting.
-- The underlying structure of event depicted – a group of people is engaged in an activity that is being interrupted by something that occurs outside the picture frame.
-- The mirror on the wall reflect the king and queen, Philip and Mariana;
-- All eyes are focusing on the king and queen;
-- The costume and action of the aposentador further corroborate the royal presence.
-- These numerous clues supply to the central event of the painting – the royal epiphany;
-- The painter in this picture has stopped the action of paining exactly at the moment when the king and queen appear in his workroom.
The presence of the monarch in a painter’s studio is a time-honored image of art theory.
-- In Pliny’s National History, Book 35, he describes the relationship between Alexander the Great and Apelles, with specific incidents – the frequent visits to the artist’s studio by the emperor and Apells’s exclusive right to paint the emperor’s portrait;
-- A major theoretical issue – the condition of painting as a liberal, noble art and thus of painters as artists entitled to enjoy the privileges of high social status;
-- The presence of the sovereign ennobled the art;
-- In 1533, Titian was made a Knight of the Golden Spur and Count Palatine by Charles V. – the granting of noble titles to artists had become almost commonplace;
-- In the painting, Velazquez is playing Apelles to Philip’s Alexander – thus, Las Meninas appear fundamentally to be the record of a unique relationship between Velazquez and Philip IV, a relationship that guaranteed the noble status of the painter and his art;
-- A small detail supports the idea – the key hanging from Velazquez’s waist is the symbol of his office as aposentador of the Royal Palace;
-- The key is not only a badge of high office, but also the token of the special relationship between the painter and king;
-- The key also emphasizes the elevated status enjoyed by a painter in a royal court.
For ideological reasons, Velazquez wanted to emphasize that Philip and Mariana were standing in his space, but decorum prevented him from representing their persons alongside his own. He resolved the problem by a number of means:
-- He focused the attention of the figures around the entrance;
-- He revealed the monarch’s presence indirectly by the mirror reflection;
-- He projected an imaginary space in front of the canvas he’s working on, so that it seems to be inhabited by beings;
-- By choosing a large format for his picture, he could use a life-size scale of people and architecture, thus opening wide the door for implying an actual royal presence;
-- The effect of this presence is strengthened by the fact that the extension of space in front of the picture plane coincides with the part of the room that is not shown in the painting.
Velazquez made a considerable effort to reproduce accurately the palace room, the galleria or pieza principal del cuarto del Principe:
-- The actual groundplan of the room bears a strong resemblance to the room we see in Las Meninas;
-- More satisfactory evidence that Las Meninas is taking place in the pieza principal is given by the paintings hanging on the walls;
-- The inventory of 1686 lists all the pictures in the room, many of which can be identified in Las Meninas;
-- Most easily recognizable are the copies by Juan Bautista del Mazo of Rubens’s Pallas and Arachne and the Judgment of Midas that hang on the east wall;
-- The pictures correspond completely in number, relative size, and subject to those described in the 1686 inventory;
-- The two bays of the room that are missing in the picture are the ones that lie in front of the picture and where the imagined figures of the king and queen are standing;
-- Velazquez made it possible for the real space in front of the picture plane to meld with the illusionistic space represented as being within it;
-- The presence of the royal couple scored another traditional point in favor of painting – its power to confer immortality;
-- The unending reincarnation of the king and queen give them an existence that is safe from the reach of time;
-- It secures the presence of the monarch as perpetual witness to an art that is worthy of kings precisely because they are there.
What is the artist painting in the picture? Over the years, three answers have emerged:
1. Velazquez is working on a portraiture of the king and queen;
2. he is portraying the Infanta(the princess) and the figures around her;
3. the third hypothesis, first suggested in the Prado catalogue of 1819, is that Velazquez is painting Las Meninas itself.
It is very possible that Las Meninas is, to some extent, a metaphor, and that the canvas in the picture may have been intended to play a part in constructing the meaning. If the painting before Velazquez were Las Meninas, then a superb concetto would deepen the meaning of the picture: the king and queen would be witnessing the creation of the very work that proclaimed the nobility they confer upon the art of painting. Velazquez seems to have wanted it to be known that his declaration of the nobility of his art was specifically endorsed by the king. It seems likely that the picture was meant to strike a blow for the nobility of painting and painters.
In Historical Context
-- By 1656, the probable date for Las Meninas, no cultured person in Italy would have classified painting as a craft;
-- However, in Spain, the Royal Treasury continued to regard painting as a manual trade, and to levy tax, or alcabala, on painters for their works;
-- Painters were insulted and degraded by the classification with tailors, shoemakers, and coopers, etc;
-- One might anticipate that Velazquez would have been shielded from the official prejudice against painters because of his position as the king’s painter; it was not the case;
-- As late as 1637, Velazquez was being asked to pay the alcabala, this would have been intolerable for a painter who had already achieved status in the royal household;
-- Velazquez held four offices simultaneously – pintor de camara, ayuda de camara, aposentador de palacio, and superintendented de obras particulares;
-- A long-standing goal of Velazquez was to achieve a knighthood, as Titian and Rubens had done;
-- By 1650 Velazquez had already petitioned the king for a knighthood and was publicly campaigning to achieve it;
-- After several rejections by the council and a long investigation, in November 1659, ten years after his initial petition, Velazquez was finally admitted to the order of Santiago, knighted, and ennobled.
The painting clearly responds to social conditions and personal ambitions that had long been in force. Las Meninas is not only an abstract claim for the nobility of painting; it is also a personal claim for the nobility of Velazquez himself. He meant to demonstrate that painting was a liberal and noble art that did not merely copy, but could re-create and even surpass nature. Painting was a legitimate form of knowledge forever beyond the reach of craft, and therefore was a liberal art.
文章中提到的aposentador这个官职，在西班牙宫廷中的职责包括掌管寝宫各个房间的钥匙，负责盛大庆典和礼仪中的人员安排，为出席会议的大臣排列座次等等。 因为这个职位，Velazquez有机会长期和国王及皇室成员接触，再加上他又是宫廷御用画师，他与国王自然保持着良好的关系。 画中他腰间挂的钥匙就是aposentador 的标志。 因此可以将这个钥匙看作是一种地位的象征。
文章中提到，国王飞利浦曾命Velazquez负责重新设计并改建宫中的部分房间，这个pieza principal del cuarto del Principe也在其中。 为此Velazquez专程去罗马寻找意大利画匠帮助绘制房间中的壁画(fresco)。 文章中所提的ground plan就是经Velazquez重新设计后的房间结构和布局。 画中房间的各个细节和资料中记载的pieza principal基本吻合。 我们看到墙上挂的那些画框都是鲁本斯(Rubens)作品的拷贝，这些画的大小比例和摆放位置和1686年的inventory list上记载的完全一致。 也就是说这个房间就是实际的pieza principal。 Velazquez原本打算请当时意大利巴洛克大师科尔托纳（Pietro da Cortona 1596-1669），但没有请到。 于是他找来了贝尔尼尼(Gianlorenzo Bernini 1598-1680)的两个助手， 把他们带回到西班牙。 委拉斯凯兹在罗马是否见到了当时伟大的建筑家贝尔尼尼呢？ 不可而知。但他作品中受到的意大利巴罗克风格的影响也是可以显现的。
这幅画的妙处在于画中人物和事物的摆放位置，也就是画面的布局。 站在左边手持调色盘的人物就是委拉斯凯兹本人，他身旁是公主、侍女和宫廷矮人（据考证这些人都确实存在过）。 画面最左边高大的画架表明画家正在作画，但作画的对象是谁呢？ 这可以在远处的镜子里找到。 镜子中反射出国王和王后的形象，按照逻辑我们知道国王和王后所在的位置正是与观众同样的位置，也就是说，国王和王后站在我们的位置，面对着画中的情景。 所有人物的注意力都集中在国王和王后身上，同时也集中在观众的身上，因为这里国王和王后是与观众等同的。 这种独特的手法一下子将观众带进了画中的世界，观众好像正在亲身经历这个瞬间。 眼前这番景象就像生活中任意的一幅画面、一个场景，无需多余的修饰或强调，自然的步入观众的眼帘（或者说是我们自然的步入画中）。 此画高三米有余，画中人物全是life-size，这样仿真的比例和布局使画中情景极为真实，增强了观众的参与感。 然而这幅作品的奥妙不局限于此。
文章的后半部分，作者分析当时西班牙画家的社会地位是有可能导致Velazquez作这幅画的主要原因。 在当时的西班牙，封建社会等级制度森严，画家这个职业是处在与鞋匠裁缝同一级别的行当，被认为是很低级的。 这种情况相比当时的意大利则是落后了一大截。 绘画(painting)并不被看作是一种高尚的艺术，而是一般的技术工种，穷人的谋生手段之一，是trade, craft。 在这种环境下画家经常被歧视，甚至连一些当时有名气的画家都会受到不公平的待遇。 Velazquez虽然身兼包括御用画师在内的四个职位, 但并不代表他在宫廷里享有了应得的待遇和尊重。 他一直想像他的同僚鲁本斯（Rubens）和提香（Titian）一样， 从国王那里得到一个骑士称号(knighthood)， 以巩固他在宫廷内部的地位和名誉。 从1650年代初他就向国王提出受勋的请求，但是受勋前的审核过程是很严格很漫长的，首先会有专人去Velazquez的家乡调查他祖上四辈的血统，检查他是否是纯正的基督徒，然后找来熟悉他的人问话。 据说这些审查Velazquez都通过了， 可到最后一关遇到了些麻烦。 审查委员会规定受勋者不能从事下等职业，这里面当然包括了绘画。 但同时又规定，一个从事painting的人，只要他不从作画中谋取利润（我理解就是作画不是职业，而是爱好），那么他仍然有资格。 后来大概是费了一些周折，Velazquez还是把这件事搞定了。 在整个审核过程中，前后共有138人接受过委员会问话，从委拉斯凯兹最初提出请求到批准经历了十年时间，终于在1659年获准加入了the Order of Santiago(当时西班牙最重要的order之一)。 整个过程被拖延了这么长时间，跟西班牙社会里画家普遍的社会地位是脱不开干系的。 就算是得到骑士称号后，在别人眼中他的实际地位也未必会因此抬高。 这大概可以为《宫娥》的初衷提出一个合理的解释：通过把自己描述成与贵族同等地位的人（他在皇室的簇拥下作画，并间接的把国王和王后也包括在画中），他在向世人宣布painting本身是一个高尚的艺术，并不是单纯的抄袭，它可以模仿大自然中的美，更可以超越大自然；同时也在抗议这个社会对绘画艺术片面的认识和所缺少的关注。
Brown在文章中还提到了鲁本斯：此人在宫廷中的经历也同样是饱含辛酸。 在鲁本斯的作品中(尤其是他的自画像)，从一些细节我们也可以感受到画家本人对这些问题的关注。 举个例子，有些自画像中，我们看到他会给自己画上一把配剑，通常来讲配剑是权力和地位的象征，只有封侯或骑士才有资格佩带。 在一幅创作年代为1610年前后的自画像中，鲁本斯与第一任妻子Isabella在一起，他的左手扶着一把剑（只露出剑柄，但已足够看得出那是一把剑了）；然而有趣的是，1610年画家还没被授予骑士称号，因此这把配剑出现在这里不能不让人产生联想。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net
On the Meaning of Las Meninas
Las Meninas seems to evade the grasp of both intuitive and rational understanding. The reason for this apparent mystique lies in the contradiction between form and subject. No single interpretation of the subject has ever satisfied every point of view.
Historical Background and Introduction
-- In 1949, Charles de Tolnay published an article in which he “read” Las Meninas as an allegory of artistic creation, an ideological statement, concerning the social status of the art of painting.
-- The underlying structure of event depicted – a group of people is engaged in an activity that is being interrupted by something that occurs outside the picture frame.
-- The mirror on the wall reflect the king and queen, Philip and Mariana;
-- All eyes are focusing on the king and queen;
-- The costume and action of the aposentador further corroborate the royal presence.
-- These numerous clues supply to the central event of the painting – the royal epiphany;
-- The painter in this picture has stopped the action of paining exactly at the moment when the king and queen appear in his workroom.
The presence of the monarch in a painter’s studio is a time-honored image of art theory.
-- In Pliny’s National History, Book 35, he describes the relationship between Alexander the Great and Apelles, with specific incidents – the frequent visits to the artist’s studio by the emperor and Apells’s exclusive right to paint the emperor’s portrait;
-- A major theoretical issue – the condition of painting as a liberal, noble art and thus of painters as artists entitled to enjoy the privileges of high social status;
-- The presence of the sovereign ennobled the art;
-- In 1533, Titian was made a Knight of the Golden Spur and Count Palatine by Charles V. – the granting of noble titles to artists had become almost commonplace;
-- In the painting, Velazquez is playing Apelles to Philip’s Alexander – thus, Las Meninas appear fundamentally to be the record of a unique relationship between Velazquez and Philip IV, a relationship that guaranteed the noble status of the painter and his art;
-- A small detail supports the idea – the key hanging from Velazquez’s waist is the symbol of his office as aposentador of the Royal Palace;
-- The key is not only a badge of high office, but also the token of the special relationship between the painter and king;
-- The key also emphasizes the elevated status enjoyed by a painter in a royal court.
For ideological reasons, Velazquez wanted to emphasize that Philip and Mariana were standing in his space, but decorum prevented him from representing their persons alongside his own. He resolved the problem by a number of means:
-- He focused the attention of the figures around the entrance;
-- He revealed the monarch’s presence indirectly by the mirror reflection;
-- He projected an imaginary space in front of the canvas he’s working on, so that it seems to be inhabited by beings;
-- By choosing a large format for his picture, he could use a life-size scale of people and architecture, thus opening wide the door for implying an actual royal presence;
-- The effect of this presence is strengthened by the fact that the extension of space in front of the picture plane coincides with the part of the room that is not shown in the painting.
Velazquez made a considerable effort to reproduce accurately the palace room, the galleria or pieza principal del cuarto del Principe:
-- The actual groundplan of the room bears a strong resemblance to the room we see in Las Meninas;
-- More satisfactory evidence that Las Meninas is taking place in the pieza principal is given by the paintings hanging on the walls;
-- The inventory of 1686 lists all the pictures in the room, many of which can be identified in Las Meninas;
-- Most easily recognizable are the copies by Juan Bautista del Mazo of Rubens’s Pallas and Arachne and the Judgment of Midas that hang on the east wall;
-- The pictures correspond completely in number, relative size, and subject to those described in the 1686 inventory;
-- The two bays of the room that are missing in the picture are the ones that lie in front of the picture and where the imagined figures of the king and queen are standing;
-- Velazquez made it possible for the real space in front of the picture plane to meld with the illusionistic space represented as being within it;
-- The presence of the royal couple scored another traditional point in favor of painting – its power to confer immortality;
-- The unending reincarnation of the king and queen give them an existence that is safe from the reach of time;
-- It secures the presence of the monarch as perpetual witness to an art that is worthy of kings precisely because they are there.
What is the artist painting in the picture? Over the years, three answers have emerged:
1. Velazquez is working on a portraiture of the king and queen;
2. he is portraying the Infanta(the princess) and the figures around her;
3. the third hypothesis, first suggested in the Prado catalogue of 1819, is that Velazquez is painting Las Meninas itself.
It is very possible that Las Meninas is, to some extent, a metaphor, and that the canvas in the picture may have been intended to play a part in constructing the meaning. If the painting before Velazquez were Las Meninas, then a superb concetto would deepen the meaning of the picture: the king and queen would be witnessing the creation of the very work that proclaimed the nobility they confer upon the art of painting. Velazquez seems to have wanted it to be known that his declaration of the nobility of his art was specifically endorsed by the king. It seems likely that the picture was meant to strike a blow for the nobility of painting and painters.
In Historical Context
-- By 1656, the probable date for Las Meninas, no cultured person in Italy would have classified painting as a craft;
-- However, in Spain, the Royal Treasury continued to regard painting as a manual trade, and to levy tax, or alcabala, on painters for their works;
-- Painters were insulted and degraded by the classification with tailors, shoemakers, and coopers, etc;
-- One might anticipate that Velazquez would have been shielded from the official prejudice against painters because of his position as the king’s painter; it was not the case;
-- As late as 1637, Velazquez was being asked to pay the alcabala, this would have been intolerable for a painter who had already achieved status in the royal household;
-- Velazquez held four offices simultaneously – pintor de camara, ayuda de camara, aposentador de palacio, and superintendented de obras particulares;
-- A long-standing goal of Velazquez was to achieve a knighthood, as Titian and Rubens had done;
-- By 1650 Velazquez had already petitioned the king for a knighthood and was publicly campaigning to achieve it;
-- After several rejections by the council and a long investigation, in November 1659, ten years after his initial petition, Velazquez was finally admitted to the order of Santiago, knighted, and ennobled.
The painting clearly responds to social conditions and personal ambitions that had long been in force. Las Meninas is not only an abstract claim for the nobility of painting; it is also a personal claim for the nobility of Velazquez himself. He meant to demonstrate that painting was a liberal and noble art that did not merely copy, but could re-create and even surpass nature. Painting was a legitimate form of knowledge forever beyond the reach of craft, and therefore was a liberal art.
文章中提到的aposentador这个官职，在西班牙宫廷中的职责包括掌管寝宫各个房间的钥匙，负责盛大庆典和礼仪中的人员安排，为出席会议的大臣排列座次等等。 因为这个职位，Velazquez有机会长期和国王及皇室成员接触，再加上他又是宫廷御用画师，他与国王自然保持着良好的关系。 画中他腰间挂的钥匙就是aposentador 的标志。 因此可以将这个钥匙看作是一种地位的象征。
文章中提到，国王飞利浦曾命Velazquez负责重新设计并改建宫中的部分房间，这个pieza principal del cuarto del Principe也在其中。 为此Velazquez专程去罗马寻找意大利画匠帮助绘制房间中的壁画(fresco)。 文章中所提的ground plan就是经Velazquez重新设计后的房间结构和布局。 画中房间的各个细节和资料中记载的pieza principal基本吻合。 我们看到墙上挂的那些画框都是鲁本斯(Rubens)作品的拷贝，这些画的大小比例和摆放位置和1686年的inventory list上记载的完全一致。 也就是说这个房间就是实际的pieza principal。 Velazquez原本打算请当时意大利巴洛克大师科尔托纳（Pietro da Cortona 1596-1669），但没有请到。 于是他找来了贝尔尼尼(Gianlorenzo Bernini 1598-1680)的两个助手， 把他们带回到西班牙。 委拉斯凯兹在罗马是否见到了当时伟大的建筑家贝尔尼尼呢？ 不可而知。但他作品中受到的意大利巴罗克风格的影响也是可以显现的。
这幅画的妙处在于画中人物和事物的摆放位置，也就是画面的布局。 站在左边手持调色盘的人物就是委拉斯凯兹本人，他身旁是公主、侍女和宫廷矮人（据考证这些人都确实存在过）。 画面最左边高大的画架表明画家正在作画，但作画的对象是谁呢？ 这可以在远处的镜子里找到。 镜子中反射出国王和王后的形象，按照逻辑我们知道国王和王后所在的位置正是与观众同样的位置，也就是说，国王和王后站在我们的位置，面对着画中的情景。 所有人物的注意力都集中在国王和王后身上，同时也集中在观众的身上，因为这里国王和王后是与观众等同的。 这种独特的手法一下子将观众带进了画中的世界，观众好像正在亲身经历这个瞬间。 眼前这番景象就像生活中任意的一幅画面、一个场景，无需多余的修饰或强调，自然的步入观众的眼帘（或者说是我们自然的步入画中）。 此画高三米有余，画中人物全是life-size，这样仿真的比例和布局使画中情景极为真实，增强了观众的参与感。 然而这幅作品的奥妙不局限于此。
文章的后半部分，作者分析当时西班牙画家的社会地位是有可能导致Velazquez作这幅画的主要原因。 在当时的西班牙，封建社会等级制度森严，画家这个职业是处在与鞋匠裁缝同一级别的行当，被认为是很低级的。 这种情况相比当时的意大利则是落后了一大截。 绘画(painting)并不被看作是一种高尚的艺术，而是一般的技术工种，穷人的谋生手段之一，是trade, craft。 在这种环境下画家经常被歧视，甚至连一些当时有名气的画家都会受到不公平的待遇。 Velazquez虽然身兼包括御用画师在内的四个职位, 但并不代表他在宫廷里享有了应得的待遇和尊重。 他一直想像他的同僚鲁本斯（Rubens）和提香（Titian）一样， 从国王那里得到一个骑士称号(knighthood)， 以巩固他在宫廷内部的地位和名誉。 从1650年代初他就向国王提出受勋的请求，但是受勋前的审核过程是很严格很漫长的，首先会有专人去Velazquez的家乡调查他祖上四辈的血统，检查他是否是纯正的基督徒，然后找来熟悉他的人问话。 据说这些审查Velazquez都通过了， 可到最后一关遇到了些麻烦。 审查委员会规定受勋者不能从事下等职业，这里面当然包括了绘画。 但同时又规定，一个从事painting的人，只要他不从作画中谋取利润（我理解就是作画不是职业，而是爱好），那么他仍然有资格。 后来大概是费了一些周折，Velazquez还是把这件事搞定了。 在整个审核过程中，前后共有138人接受过委员会问话，从委拉斯凯兹最初提出请求到批准经历了十年时间，终于在1659年获准加入了the Order of Santiago(当时西班牙最重要的order之一)。 整个过程被拖延了这么长时间，跟西班牙社会里画家普遍的社会地位是脱不开干系的。 就算是得到骑士称号后，在别人眼中他的实际地位也未必会因此抬高。 这大概可以为《宫娥》的初衷提出一个合理的解释：通过把自己描述成与贵族同等地位的人（他在皇室的簇拥下作画，并间接的把国王和王后也包括在画中），他在向世人宣布painting本身是一个高尚的艺术，并不是单纯的抄袭，它可以模仿大自然中的美，更可以超越大自然；同时也在抗议这个社会对绘画艺术片面的认识和所缺少的关注。
Brown在文章中还提到了鲁本斯：此人在宫廷中的经历也同样是饱含辛酸。 在鲁本斯的作品中(尤其是他的自画像)，从一些细节我们也可以感受到画家本人对这些问题的关注。 举个例子，有些自画像中，我们看到他会给自己画上一把配剑，通常来讲配剑是权力和地位的象征，只有封侯或骑士才有资格佩带。 在一幅创作年代为1610年前后的自画像中，鲁本斯与第一任妻子Isabella在一起，他的左手扶着一把剑（只露出剑柄，但已足够看得出那是一把剑了）；然而有趣的是，1610年画家还没被授予骑士称号，因此这把配剑出现在这里不能不让人产生联想。更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net
