New York art critic Jerry Saltz recently posted on social media a typically on-target take on some extraordinary paintings he found himself standing in front of. Saltz says and writes lots of things about the contemporary art world, but this post bears special mention for two reasons: one, the artist he was talking about is one of the greatest of all time, and two, what he said reminds us that art is not actually “whatever you want it to be” – it really does vary in quality, especially quality of content. We know great art when we see it, and there’s a reason for that.

Jerry calls Velázquez “a miracle that happened” for the way his looseness of rendering moved painting forward as a vehicle for his own insightful visions of humanity. Jerry takes us on a guided tour of Velázquez’s “mighty” full-length portrait of Aesop, the ancient Greek author of animal fables. 

In Velázquez’s Aesop (above), he says, “we see the Writer’s Life, the Artist’s Life – beaten down, unrewarded, obsessed, half mad… his clothes are disheveled… he probably smells, and yet there’s a humanity in all of Velázquez’s work.” Aesop began life as a slave and died a violent death.

“He treats each person like an individual soul with their own syncopation with the universe,” Jerry says. “You feel that he understood the beat and the vibration and the being of time itself.”

Diego Velázquez, Portrait of Sebastián de Morra. 1644

Turning to one of Velázquez’s several portraits of “buffoons,” or royal clowns/court jesters, (a portrait of a man named Sebastián de Morra), Jerry has this to say. “The court often kept midgets, buffoons around, but look at the dignity – the soulfulness. The idea of being human just never quits.”

There’s a slight touch of contempt, perhaps, in the eyes of “Aesop” as well as Velázquez’s dwarfs and fools, a sharp savor of irony, perhaps, that comes of a lifetime of seeing through convention. 

“And the weird foreshortening that both augments the dwarfism and makes it freakish but also displays himself in all of his glory…. And this face – that will last a lifetime. Velázquez is like no other. None.”

 All of these qualities were there from the start in Velázquez’s work. Velázquez made the painting below, known as The Waterseller, of Seville, in his late teens or early 20s. For several reasons, it’s far more than a conventional “genre painting” depicting a commonly relatable scene from everyday life. 

Diego Velázquez, The Waterseller, of Seville, 1618-1622, oil on canvas, 105 cm × 80 cm (41 in × 31 in)

First, as in the portrait of Aesop, Velásquez takes pains to bear witness to the water-seller’s poverty, yet lifts him up and honors his inherent worth and dignity. The old man’s face is burnt and rough from years of exposure to the sun and wind, pensive and deeply scarred with the wrinkles of age. 

The directional light is such as was usually reserved for religious paintings of holy figures. This borrowing from church paintings gives the man’s shaved hair and plain garments the suggestion of a monk or saint. For this painter, the slightest ordinary act could partake of the sacred.

Then there is the grouping of the figures, each isolated by not making eye contact: a rather doughy, upper-class boy is being served by the time-ravaged “commoner,” while a non-descript adult between them looks vacantly on. From left to right we can read the remorseless flow of time, from childhood through midlife to old age.

Velázquez, The Waterseller, 1618-1622 (detail)

In this far-from-ordinary image, nothing is arbitrary or not thought-out. Velásquez offers us not only his personal insight into the human heart but insight into the human condition itself: three strata of society, and three stages of life – youth, adulthood, and age – class, time, the sacred and the profane – it is all swimming just under the surface of one “ordinary” moment, right before our eyes. This is what’s meant by having something to say in a painting. Velázquez treated painting as a noble and heroic act, and people around him took notice.

A few months after finishing this picture, Velásquez was ordered to paint a portrait of King Philip IV. And so began the rest of Velásquez’s life as court painter to the king and one of the most influential artists of all time.

If you are interested in the portrait techniques of the old masters, check out artist Charles Miano’s video, “Old Master Portrait Drawing.”