John Singer Sargent was an innately gifted artist.
He studied and worked very hard and long through-
out his life. As Michelangelo’s “theory” pointed out
though, hard work is not enough and one of Sar-
gent’s secrets to the appearance of effortlessness
came from adherence to a central principle cham-
pioned by his teacher Carolus-Duran (1837-1917).
“In art, all that is not indispensable is unnecessary”
was one of the precepts which Duran had formulat-
ed after his study of Velázquez. He urged his stu-
dents to make copies of the pictures of Velázquez
in the Louvre, not laborious copies, but copies “au
premier coup,” that is, in one go.
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660)
was one of the outstanding luminaries in the entire
history of painting. This artist’s working methods,
too, offer insight into how he achieved the appear-
ance of labor without effort. Scientific analysis of
his works at the Prado Museum in Madrid reveals
that he also painted with extreme economy of
means.
Diego Velázquez
The Surrender of Breda 1634–5 on canvas 121 x 144”
Museo del Prado, Madrid
His The Surrender of Breda commemorates an
event during the Thirty Years War when Dutch forc-
es were forced to give up the city of Breda to the
Spanish Army under General Ambrogio Spinola in
1624. Like Sargent, Velázquez did not paint from
a completed drawing; only a very few drawings
can be attributed to him. Velázquez must have had
some initial conception but this large, very complex
history painting with landscape, underwent a great
deal of improvisation directly on the canvas.
The artist suggested the atmosphere of smoke and
clouds in the background, using very thin oil colors
that leave much of the canvas texture visible. X-rays
reveal significant alterations in the clothing and po-
sitioning of the figures. Interestingly, the magnifi-
cently arranged lances were originally a great deal
shorter. The masterpiece is also a testimony of ci-
vility after the bitterness of war, as General Spinola
touches the shoulder of Dutch General Nassau in
an expression of consolation, before receiving the
key to the city.
Velázquez’s Pope Innocent X, painted on the sec-
ond of the artist’s two tours of Italy in 1650, has
been called by some the greatest portrait of all time
and brought the artist immediate fame. “It is made
of nothing, but there it is.” said an admiring Italian
contemporary observer. In her 1982 monograph
on the artist, leading British Velázquez authority
Enriqueta Harris had this to say about the picture,
“No reproduction can convey the almost physical
impact of the original painting of this stern, ugly
old man, seated in an enormous chair…or give an
idea of the brilliant combinations of various shades
Diego Velázquez
Pope Innocent X 1650 oil on canvas 141 x 119”
Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome
of crimson of the curtain, the chair, the cape and biretta.
Even the pope’s complexion is ruddy, and the crimson is
broken only by the dazzling white of the surplice, painted
almost without shadows. And even in the original, it is
difficult to see how the strong modeling of the head has
been achieved with hardly visible brush strokes.” 3
May|June 2017 41