Velázquez’s “Las Meninas” has taken its rightful place as one of the most fascinating artworks to analyze in the whole of Western painting. Scholars describe “Las Meninas” as an embodiment of art itself within a painting: It is the philosophy of art depicted on canvas
--Foucault
Conversation
Part of my theory on how this painting came to be is that Velazquez was tired of painting terrifyingly inbred Spanish royals and figured that the wide view might be best.
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I have no evidence that this was the actual reason other than previous Velazquez portraits:
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