El denso estudio de Martin Warnke describe, a partir de un exacto conocimiento del estado de la investigación y de las fuentes, las etapas vitales fundamentales del principal pintor español y, al describir sus obras capitales, valora en sus justos términos el trabajo del pintor, con suma solidez verbal y sin descuidar en ningún momento la cuestión que constituye el punto de partida de este estudio y que se trata de desentrañar de un modo consecuente : ¿cómo fue posible que un artista, que en su ciudad natal de Sevilla era conocido sobre todo como pintor de cocinas y escenas callejeras, fuera llamado a la cultivada corte del rey Felipe IV y permaneciera allí toda su vida? En una España sacudida por la crisis ?según la tesis del libro? , dentro de los rígidos esfuerzos de ahorro y de reformas, se le había asignado a la corte una imagen nueva, casi ascética, a la que respondía bien el estilo realista de Velázquez. A su arte se le encomendó una misión educativa, que el pintor trató de cumplir con temas y medios pictóricos cambiantesAfter Edouard Manet discovered Velázquez?s painting to be the precursor of the impressionist gaze, the public at large expressed its admiration for the genius who succeeded as no other had done in capturing the visible world in the colours and forms of his paintings. To avoid an artistically oriented contemplation that may be over enthusiastic at times and to shun the ruses of today?s contest of riddles that art history amounts to in this field is the arduous task that this new examination of the historical Velázquez sets out to perform in order to clarify for once and for all the painter?s complex iconographic schemes. Departing from an accurate knowledge of the state of research and sources, Martin Warnke?s thorough study traces the basic stages in the life of the greatest Spanish painter and, when describing his capital works, appreciates the painter?s accomplishments for their true worth, writing with great soundness and without neglecting the underlying question, which it sets out to unravel it in a coherent manner: how is it possible that an artist known above all as a painter of kitchen and street scenes in Seville, his city of birth, should have been summoned to the cultivated court of King Philip IV and remained there for his whole life? In a Spain gripped by crisis ? the book argues ? as part of the rigid efforts at saving and implementing reforms, the court had been assigned a new, almost ascetic image to which Velázquez?s realist style related well. His art was entrusted with an educational mission, which the painter strove to fulfil with changing themes and paint media.
