Rembrandt vs. Velazquez

http://blog.singulart.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/nightwatch2.jpg
Rembrandt's 'The Night Watch'

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Las_Meninas%2C_by_Diego_Vel%C3%A1zquez%2C_from_Prado_in_Google_Earth.jpg/1200px-Las_Meninas%2C_by_Diego_Vel%C3%A1zquez%2C_from_Prado_in_Google_Earth.jpg
Velazquez's 'Las Meninas'

you know what? i want to re-phrase. rembrandt's figures have secrets and interiority -- like, to a remarkable degree -- but the paintings themselves are not as mysterious. it's velazquez's paintings that, by comparison, seem to pull away from the viewer.

I'm not really familiar with Velazquez, I'm doubtless being hugely unfair to him here but he was a court painter and notwithstanding the mystery of Las Meninas I don't care if I never see another royal painting in my life. Voting Rembrandt for his subject matter, self portraits, the almost impressionist moments in his later works, his drawings, etchings, and his life story.

immediate reaction was to say Velazquez for the same opposite reason, i.e. i've less interest in the cheery birth pangs of the bourgeoisie and their greatest mythologist. but i dunno, not gonna make a snap judgement based on morning empty gloom.

obviously Las Meninas alone is just above and beyond everything but

i went to the picasso museum in barcelona a couple of years ago and learned there that as a teenager the young pablo p used to go find paintings by velazquez and copy them - in a matter of a couple of hours - and they displayed an example of this, a portrait of philip iv, alongside a reproduction of the original, and damn if picasso's isn't even just a little bit better. maybe. in any case it was very close. and given his later obsession with las meninas it's clear he had a lifelong love of velazquez, so i've tried to see what he saw in v's paintings. there is a kind of ineffability about the look the subjects have in their eyes, which when paired with the quite finely observed physical details leads to a seriously bewitching collision of earthly and heavenly. but you could say the same about, for instance, rembrandt, maybe.

anybody who hasn't should read Foucault reading Las Meninas at the beginning of The Order of Things

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/RokebyVenus.jpg/1280px-RokebyVenus.jpg

'Rokeby Venus' is my favourite Velasquez. Not sure, today, if it kicks Rembrandt's ass. Not sure if I care enough about the t/s here, either tbf.

tbf to treesh i always read these threads as invitations for discussion rather than daft binaries

Oh no mistake, I completely agree with that, and welcome it. Just meant I probably won't be able to make a choice myself.

All this talk of Velazquez' time as court artist - he is also one of the greatest ever observers and recorders of the poor, the despised and the different, and his quiet and impartial compassion for them is pretty clear:

https://i.ibb.co/3W1kbW1/Velazquez-Diego-The-Dwarf-Francisco-Lezcano-Art-amp-Heritage-Collections-Robert-Gordon-University-ht.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/Vmc84dB/Velazquez-Diego-The-Waterseller-of-Seville-English-Heritage-The-Wellington-Collection-Apsley-House-h.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/wRgMJfd/Velazquez-Diego-Two-Young-Men-Eating-at-a-Humble-Table-English-Heritage-The-Wellington-Collection-Ap.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/Tcc1qc6/Velazquez-Diego-Boy-with-a-Flagon-Amgueddfa-Cymru-National-Museum-Wales-http-www-artuk-org-artworks.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/C58bt9G/1024px-Vel-zquez-El-Triunfo-de-Baco-o-Los-Borrachos-Museo-del-Prado-1628-29.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/MNq46P2/1024px-VEL-ZQUEZ-Vieja-friendo-huevos-National-Galleries-of-Scotland-1618-leo-sobre-lienzo-100-5-x-1.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/jJFFngc/url.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/6gC1qW7/1-y-Cd-PVLR1-GHFniwh-Vigy6-LA.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/LRLxtnJ/Kitchen-Scene-With-The-Supper-In-Emmaus-C-1618.jpg

He is one of my favourite old masters for this reason.

those are great

i can't help getting a little bit homes-under-the-hammer with them

for instance the pitcher here:
https://i.ibb.co/LRLxtnJ/Kitchen-Scene-With-The-Supper-In-Emmaus-C-1618.jpg

is almost exactly the pitcher here!
https://i.ibb.co/MNq46P2/1024px-VEL-ZQUEZ-Vieja-friendo-huevos-National-Galleries-of-Scotland-1618-leo-sobre-lienzo-100-5-x-1.jpg

Yeah, you can see the Carivaggisti studio influence there, I think, with the props as well as the models

I forgot one:

https://i.ibb.co/Jv26q3K/Cristo-en-casa-de-Marta-y-Mari-a-by-Diego-Vela-zquez.jpg

Rembrandt is all-time, but Velazquez might be the greatest painter as painter ever.

Greatest portrait of all time?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Juan_de_Pareja#/media/File:Retrato_de_Juan_Pareja,_by_Diego_Vel%C3%A1zquez.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/06/Retrato_de_Juan_Pareja%2C_by_Diego_Vel%C3%A1zquez.jpg/1920px-Retrato_de_Juan_Pareja%2C_by_Diego_Vel%C3%A1zquez.jpg

Hello, I c ur soul and u c mine.

http://d3d00swyhr67nd.cloudfront.net/w944h944/collection/WMR/APH/WMR_APH_N070554-001.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d4/Vel%C3%A1zquez_%E2%80%93_Buf%C3%B3n_don_Sebasti%C3%A1n_de_Morra_%28Museo_del_Prado%2C_c._1645%29.jpg/600px-Vel%C3%A1zquez_%E2%80%93_Buf%C3%B3n_don_Sebasti%C3%A1n_de_Morra_%28Museo_del_Prado%2C_c._1645%29.jpg

Greatest portrait of all time?

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/707a2c168c2371a6c45a9b8dbc1da14a3b6187fd/0_484_2983_1790/master/2983.jpg?width=1300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=24a3802bbbd8942131f16c3de939d8e0

Robert Pollard has let himself go.

Yeah, Rembrandt is so good as well. I love them both.

Robert Pollard has let himself go.

Velázquez lends himself better to verbal commentary, so Rembrandt by a country mile.

Velazquez

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

*breathing quickens*

Prefer Rembrandt's etchings to his paintings (except the late ones which are beyond words) by a smidgen. Velazquez is unreal, though. Sorry, RHvR maar...

Have to add, though, that in my time living here in Amsterdam my love and compassion for Rembrandt ( and Saskia and Titus and all in his family circle ) has grown. Not a trace is left of any of them other than buildings they resided in and some grave markers ( and the art, obviously) but even their remains seem to have been tossed to the winds (canals?) not very long after they had been buried.

it's kind of the price you pay for free markets

i can’t decide this one. both have held me in a trance in front of their paintings. considerable humanity and insight in both. this is making me want to read biographies of each.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

smh