DIEGO RODRIGUEZ DE SILVA Y, the greatest painter of Spain, both in variety and in power, was the son of a lawyer, and was born of good family at the town of Seville in 1599, the same year in which Van Dyck saw the light. The lad received the best scholastic education that Seville could afford, and gave early evidence of a decided taste for drawing, which determined his parents to place him with the painter Herrera the Elder, a harsh, violent, passionate man; but a bold, dashing, spirited artist. Velasquez, being of a quiet and gentle temper, grew weary of the rough usage of this master, and sought the instructions of Francisco Pacheco, a timid, cold, classical painter, in every respect the very opposite of Herrera. And yet Velasquez remained with him five years; but at the end of this period he married Juana, Pacheco's daughter, who most likely exercised a much stronger fascination over him than that which her father's brush could exert. Besides, he had early made up his mind that nature is the artist's best teacher, and industry his surest guide to perfection. He accordingly kept a peasant lad as an apprentice, whom he sketched in every conceivable attitude, and thus laid the foundation of that wonderful excellence to which he afterwards attained in the art of delineating male heads. His detractors used to say that he could paint a head and nothing else; but a moment's reflection would have taught them that the Spanish Van Dyck, when he chose to descend to the Feria, could rival his townsman Murillo; and no Teniers or Hogarth could surpass his drunken wassailers. His dogs equal those of Snyders; his horses those of Rubens; and his landscapes exceed those of all Spanish artists. To those who suggested Raphaelle to him as a model, he used to reply, that "he would rather be the first of vulgar than the second of refined painters." This was his artistic creed throughout his whole life. "Tell me not," he seemed to say to all critics, "what is spiritual, ideal, poetical; but tell me what is real, earthly, human, and I shall paint that." The ideal he left to those who had a relish for it; he was content simply to delineate truthfully what lay near him. Hence Velasquez's works are quite unique. His mind passed into his subjects; and he painted men as if they would walk out of the frames.

Furnished with various introductions from his father-in-law, Velasquez set out, in the month of April 1622, to visit the capital of Spain. After some months' study at the Pardo and the Escorial, he returned again to Seville, only to leave it on a second and more successful visit to Madrid. Attended by his slave, Juan Pareja, who afterwards rose to eminence as a painter, Velasquez set out for the capital. They lodged at the house of Fonseca, a patron of art, and a warm friend of Velasquez, whose portrait brought the young Sevillian into such notice that he received an order from the king to remain in his service henceforward. Velasquez was now on the high road to fortune, and, if his star should prevent not, likewise to fame. He painted the king, mounted on a fine Andalusian charger, "the best horseman in all Spain;" and his devoted subjects had an opportunity of bespattering the royal subject and the artist alike with praise, on the exhibition of the painting in front of the church of San Felipe el Real, in the High Street of Madrid. His majesty had never been painted before. So spoke the prime-minister. So thought the king; and he resolved that henceforward Velasquez should have the monopoly of his royal countenance,—a vow which he characteristically broke in favour of Rubens and Crayer. Both somnus and duets poured in upon the young painter, and, what he probably valued more, he was chosen painter in ordinary to the king on the 31st October 1623. His salary was doubled, his family was ordered to Madrid, and he was provided with apartments in the treasury worth 200 ducats a year. To portray the royal family was henceforward his chief duty. The celebrated equestrian portrait of King Philip IV., now in the Royal Gallery of Madrid, is supposed to be one of the finest pictures in the world. The same year his pencil was busy on a picture of low life, which for force of character and strength of colouring has never been excelled. This is the famous painting of "The Topers" (Los Borachos). Velasquez next gained a victory in a pictorial competition proposed by the king, of "Philip III. expelling the Moriscos." Philip advanced Velasquez to the post of usher, and bestowed upon his father three legal appointments in the government offices at Seville.

In 1628, Velasquez had the pleasure of making the friendship of Rubens, and of showing him over the Escorial. Next year he set out on a tour to Italy. He visited Venice, Ferrara, and Rome. Pope Urban VIII. assigned him apartments in the Vatican, while he diligently copied the works of M. Angelo and Raffaelle. As spring advanced he sought the airy heights of Villa-Medici, from which he was soon compelled to remove by the malaria with which the place was infected. He spent nearly the whole of the next year in Rome. The paintings of "Velasquez himself," of the "Forge of Vulcan," and of "Joseph's Coat," all intensely Spanish, in spite of the grandeur of Italian art, complete his original works during his residence at Rome. He returned to Madrid in the spring of 1631, where he was kindly received by Olivarez, as well as by the king, who was that subtle minister's tool. Portraiture was the main work of Velasquez for some years. He painted excellent pictures of Philip III. and Queen Margaret, of the Count-Duke of Olivarez, and of the Duke of Modena. He produced, in 1639, one of his noblest paintings, "The Crucifixion," executed for the nunnery of San Placido. During the same year he was busy with a painting of Admiral Pulido Pareja, which is said to have been so true to nature, that the king mistook it for the original. Next year he visited, with his royal master, the Tempe of Spain, and painted numerous pieces from the silvan shades and exquisite garden-walks of fair Aranjuez. Besides portraits of Queen Isabella of Spain, of the king, of Don Balthazar Carlos, and of Quevedo the poet, we have nothing more from his hand for some time, save the noble picture, "The Surrender of Breda," commonly known as Las Lanzas.

Velasquez visited Italy a second time on a royal mission to collect works of art. After spending about a year altogether in Italy, during which time he painted the portrait of Pope Innocent X., now the gem of the Doria collection, he hastened back to Madrid in 1651. On his return the king made him Aposentador-major of the royal household. This lucrative and honourable post had formerly been held by the architects Herrera and Mora. The duties of this office were various; but the burden of the post consisted in securing a lodging for the king's person during his numerous migrations. Henceforward Velasquez had little time for painting. Except the exquisite picture known as the "Maids of Honour" (Las Meninas), which artists have usually considered his masterpiece, little else of any note intervenes worthy of record. In 1656 he was made a Knight of Santiago, the king drawing with his own hand the much coveted red cross on the portrait of the artist introduced into the "Maids of Honour." His visit as Aposentador to the Bidassoa, to erect a royal pavilion on the Pheasants' Isle, for the reception of royalty on the occasion of the celebration of the nuptials of Louis XIV. of France and the Infanta Maria Theresa, cost Velasquez his life. After a lingering illness, he died on the 6th of April 1660, in the sixty-first year of his age. See Velasquez and his Works, by William Stirling, 1855. (For a critical estimate of Velasquez as a painter, see Arts, Fine, and Painting.)