Luncheon Diego Rodriguez De Silva y Velazquez (1599-1660)

Description of Diego Velázquez’s Breakfast

Diego Velázquez is one of the world’s most beloved painters, and was also one for the king, whom he served faithfully until his death. In painting the portraits of his courtiers, the glitz and glamour of the great palaces, he never forgot the ordinary people, who could never afford such luxuries. So occasionally the artist’s work revealed his desire to do something for these people, even if it would only be a painting. Although it is impossible to minimize in this case, because it is not just a painting, but a painting of -Velazquez himself.

Two young men, seated at a table covered with a white tablecloth, are talking with an old man whom they have apparently invited to their breakfast - this is the foreground of the painting. The artist has skilfully depicted the expression of the revelers’ faces, the young men smiling and making toasts, which can be understood from the cups being filled and raised, and the waiter standing behind them waiting to fill them again.

The old man looks at them, as if from some distance, the way old age looks at the living, throbbing youth. The figures in the foreground are highlighted and the viewer can see them well; everything else is obscured, and it is not even clear what is there in the background, whether it is in fact a waiter’s figure or a pile of things. The light falls only on the figures in front, and according to the artist’s idea there is a contrast of light and darkness, youth and old age.

According to researchers, portraying one of the young men, the artist gave him the features of his own face.

The Breakfast was painted around 1617, and is in full compliance with all the canons of Spanish painting of the time, as all subjects are saturated with rigor and proportionality, from the image of still life, and ending with the drawing of the faces of those present.