Skip to content

Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers

Scala Arts Publishers, Inc.

  • About us
    • About us
    • Director’s message
    • Meet the team
  • Publish with us
    • Publish with us
    • Client list
  • How to order
    • How to order
  • Scala publications
    • All titles
    • Upcoming titles
    • Art
      • Fine art
      • Contemporary art
      • Decorative art
      • Architecture
      • Sculpture
    • Collections
    • Education
      • Schools & colleges
      • Academic
      • Children’s
    • Exhibitions
    • Heritage
      • Royal collection
      • Castles
      • Homes & gardens
      • Sporting venues
    • Illustrated histories
    • Libraries
    • Religious sites
    • Series
      • Director’s Choice
      • Art Spaces
      • Highlights
      • 4-Fold
Menu
  • About us
    • About us
    • Director’s message
    • Meet the team
  • Publish with us
    • Publish with us
    • Client list
  • How to order
    • How to order
  • Scala publications
    • All titles
    • Upcoming titles
    • Art
      • Fine art
      • Contemporary art
      • Decorative art
      • Architecture
      • Sculpture
    • Collections
    • Education
      • Schools & colleges
      • Academic
      • Children’s
    • Exhibitions
    • Heritage
      • Royal collection
      • Castles
      • Homes & gardens
      • Sporting venues
    • Illustrated histories
    • Libraries
    • Religious sites
    • Series
      • Director’s Choice
      • Art Spaces
      • Highlights
      • 4-Fold
Search
Close

Velázquez

Las Meninas

Gabriele Finaldi

  • Categories: 4-Fold, Fine art
ISBN: 978 1 85759 408 9
Size: 172 x 120 mm / 4.72 x 6.77 in.
Binding: 4-fold
Pages: 8
Images: 50
Date published: July, 2006
UK £6.95
/ US $9.95

Highlights

  • Part of Scala’s innovative 4-fold series
  • Examines the painting in detail, unravelling its many levels of meaning

Description

Las Meninas (The Maids of Honour) is more than a portrait, or even a portrait of a portraitist at work. Velázquez was always concerned about his status at court; he thus includes the king and the queen in this painting, both reflected in a mirror – and present as witnesses to the painter in creative flow. The figures in the picture seem caught between one position and the next, with the snapshot effect that the Impressionists and Degas were to seek 200 years later. Other painters were to try to equal or better the extraordinary illusion of space in the picture. But Velázquez’s skill in achieving this was already apparent in earlier works. The painting is the consummation of baroque spatial action or illusionism, and is an example of the power of art to communicate what is real and to imagine what by nature is unreal. This superb 4-fold guide examines in detail the work’s historical context and unravels the many levels of meaning contained within it.

Author information

Gabriele Finaldi is Deputy Director of The Prado, Madrid.

Share

Amazon UK
Amazon USA

Related publications

50 Masterpieces of Czech Fin de Siècle Art

From the Collections of the Gallery of West Bohemia in Pilsen

Masterpiece in Residence

Velázquez’s King Philip IV of Spain from The Frick Collection

With Observation and Imagination

Still Lives, Genre Scenes, Portraits, and Landscapes from the Saunders Collection

The Courtauld

Highlights from the Gallery

The Royal Łazienki Museum in Warsaw

Director's Choice

Tyrolean State Museums

Director's Choice

Meadows Museum

A Handbook of the Collections

Benaki Museum

Director's Choice

Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd
305 Access House
141-157 Acre Lane
London SW2 5UA
United Kingdom

Scala Arts Publishers, Inc.
c/o CohnReznick LLP
1301 Avenue of the Americas
10th Floor
New York, NY 10019
United States

  • Contact us

Follow us

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • FAQ
  • Download catalogue
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookie policy
  • Credits