Villa medici in rome diego velazquez biography

Just as realism of Caravaggio was directed almost exclusively at history and religious themes, and not at portraits, which must essentially aim at mimesis, so Velázquez, although he was an excellent painter of still life and a considerable landscape artist, limited himself strictly to portraits.

In both cases the realism is concentrated within a limited range on an exclusively subjective basis. The two small landscapes representing the garden of the Villa Medici in Rome (so accurate that they differ substantially little from the photographs taken of the same views three centuries later) are exceptional in the work of the great Spaniard and were probably painted during his second trip to Italy in 1650, perhaps out of a momentary indulgence in the great success he was enjoying at that time in this genre, and in particular in the Arcadian landscape with ancient ruins.

Velázquez was also interested at that time in collecting