Lives of Velázquez

Francisco Pacheco, Antonio Palomino, Michael Jacobs , Nina Ayala Mallory

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English

Pallas Athene
01 July 2023

Art & Architecture; History of art & design styles: c 1600 to c 1800; Painting & paintings; Individual artists, art monographs; Biography: arts & entertainment

Series: Lives of the Artists

Collected for the first time in a new translation: two of the most important and far-reaching biographies of an artist ever written, and our principal sources for the life of Velázquez.

Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) is for many the greatest painter ever to have lived. His astonishing naturalism had an immediate and lasting impact on his contemporaries, inspiring both awe and fierce debate.

Most of what we know about Velázquez' life and incomparably successful career comes from these two biographies. Francisco Pacheco, a second rank painter, was Velázquez' teacher and eventually father in law possibly the closest relationship between a painter and his biographer in all art. This Life, part of Pacheco's theoretical work, the Art of Painting, has never been translated before, and it reveals the scale of the challenge to traditional painting presented by Velázquez' insurmountable talent. Antonio Palomino, the Spanish Vasari, was born just after Velazquez died, but knew many of the painter's friends and colleagues. His biography, precise and detailed, is an incomparable source, but like Pacheco's text also tackles the aesthetic debate engendered by Velázquez' choice of subject matter and style. Together these biographies give an excitingly close insight into the mind and world of a great painter.

The introduction by Michael Jacobs situates these biographies in the context of Spain's Golden Age, and the intellectual ferment in painting and in the theatre that lie behind Velázquez' magic. The translations are by Nina Ayala Mallory, the leading scholar of Spanish artistic biographies. The volume is richly illustrated with 51 pages of colour illustrations covering the full gamut of Velazquez' work.

53 colour illustrations

By: Francisco Pacheco, Antonio Palomino
Edited by: Michael Jacobs
Translated by: Nina Ayala Mallory
Imprint: Pallas Athene
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: 2nd edition
Dimensions: Height: 145mm, Width: 114mm, Spine: 11mm
Weight: 198g
ISBN: 9781843681670
ISBN 10: 1843681676
Series: Lives of the Artists
Pages: 192
Publication Date: 01 July 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Reviews for Lives of Velázquez

"""The London publishing house Pallas Athene has come up with the very welcome and worthwhile project of assembling English translations of early biographies of artists in an easily accessible publication."" - Historians of Netherlands Art Reviews"