Interpretation without Representation, or, the Viewing of Las Meninas Author(s): Svetlana Alpers Reviewed work(s): Source: Representations,

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SVETLANA

ALPERS

Interpretation without Representation, or, The Viewing of Las Meninas*

ALONG WITH VERMEER'S Art of Painting and Courbet's Studio, one of thegreatest of Velazquez'sLas Meninas(fig.1) is surely representations in all ofWestern pictorial representation eludedfull painting. Whyhas thiswork andsatisfactory discussion itbe that themajor byarthistorians? Whyshould study, the mostserious on thisworkin our time, is by and sustained pieceof writing MichelFoucault?'Thereis, I shallargue, builtintothe a structural explanation ofthediscipline itself thathas madea picture suchas Las interpretive procedures therubric ofarthistory. the Meninas unthinkable under Before literally considering to do,in representational letus consider as I propose work, terms, whythisshould be so. we can trace twolinesofargument aboutLas Meninas: thefirst, Historically, most elegantly in Theophile encapsulated Gautier's "Ou1 estdoncle tableau?" has withtheextraordinarily beenconcerned ofthepainted real presence The world.2 frame appears tointersect a room whose ceiling, floor, andwindow baysextend, so it is suggested, to include theviewer. The light and shadow-filled spaceis notonly for intended theviewer's eyes-as in thecaseofitsmuch smaller predecessor hung at theSpanishcourt, Van Eyck'sArnolfini Giventhegreatsize of the Wedding. itis intended alsofor theviewer's The sizeofthefigures is a match for canvas, body. ourown.This appeal at onceto eyeand to body is a remarkable pictorial performance which human ofillusioncontradictorily presents powerful figures bymeans In the nineteenth it was a commonplace fortravellers ary surfaces. to century Madridtorefer toitin whatwe cancallphotographic terms. Continuing a tradition in theeighteenth started aboutsuchworks as Vermeer's it century ViewofDelft, was compared to nature seenin a camera and Stirling-Maxwell, an early obscura, noted that Las Meninas ofpreswriter, The pictorial anticipated Daguerre. quality ence is sustained in the apparently casual deportment of thefigures thatis disin theworks tinguished, as so often ofVelazquez, bya particular feature: thefact we arelooked that at bythose at whom we arelooking. To twentieth century eyesat thisgives it theappearance least, ofa snapshot being taken. In theforeground, the little tous from princess turns herentourage, as doesoneofhermaids, anda dwarf, andofcourse whohas stepped hiscanvas Velazquezhimself backfrom for this very purpose.
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Fig. 1. Diego VelAzquez.Las Meninas, 1656. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

The gaze out ofthecanvas is a consistent in Velazquez's works.In their feature separate portraits, and dwarfalike meetour eyes,but mostastounding are royalty in thelargerscenes:two ofthepeasantscelebrating the minorfigures Bacchus in an earlywork(fig.2), forexample,or the memorable soldierto theleftand theofficers to theright of The Surrender at themargin between ofBreda,or thewomansituated thetwo spaces of The Spinners.I refer to thisphenomenon as a gaze, to distinguish it froma glance. It does not initiateor attendto some occurrence; emptyof exit is not,in short, pression, in nature.The gaze, rather, narrative within signalsfrom thatthevieweroutsidethepicture thepicture is seenand in turnit acknowledges the stateofbeingseen. Though notinvented fortheoccasionofLas Meninas,thedevice is heightened herebecause it is thematized or possibly by thesituation, thesituations at hand. Justwhat thesituation is-hence whatthe subjectoftheworkis-has been the concern of the secondline of argument about Las Meninas. The problemis notone of identification-anearly commentator identified each participantin the scene (even including the figure pausing in the lightof the distant doorwaywhose role of

1628-29. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Fig. 2. Diego Vela'zquez. Los Borrachos,

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_]~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
... _..

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matches marshalin thequeen's entourage to significantly Velazquez's role in service ofthekingand queen markedby theirreflection theking).Howeverthepresence in mirror the prominent at the centerof the farwall, and the large pictureseen from the back on its stretcher, whichintrudes at the left, raise problems.Where are the and what is the subject king and queen or what is the source of theirreflections, being paintedon the unseencanvas? The impulsein recentstudieshas been to anto supplytheplot-a little swerthesequestionsby attempting playletas one scholar so thisaccountgoes,has calls it-of whichthispicture is a scene.3The littleInfanta, droppedin to see Velazquez at work,stopsto ask her maid of honorfora drinkof entrance water and looks up when surprised of her parents, by the unexpected the kingand queen. It is characteristic ofarthistorical thatit is thequestionofplotto which practice thenotionofthemeaningoftheworkis appended,rather thanto thequestionofthe natureof the pictorialrepresentation. Though scholarsdiffer about the specifics of theplot-are theroyalpair posingfortheirportraits whentheprincess or arrives, is it rathertheprincess and her retinue who pose as kingand queen arrive?-theyare agreedthatit is thepresenceof the kingand queen withthepainterthatis emplotted here.4And it is on this basis that the meaningof Las Meninas is todayinterpretedas a claim forthenobility ofpaintingas a liberalart and as a personalclaim on the part of Velazquez himself. fornobility In short, Las Meninas is now understoodas a visual statement of the social rank desiredby the painter. To back up thispoint,detaileddocumentation has been collected to showthatall Spanish paintersworkedunderfinancial and social pressures due to theirlow professionalstatusas craftsmen, and that some struggled to bringabout change.5 Of course any pictorialperformance of the brillianceand accomplishment of Las Meninas might be said to makehighclaimsforart,but thenatureofVelazquez's claims are problematic in the sense that he does not distinguish the liberal aspect of art from its craft. Fromhis self-conscious avowal ofpaint as boththecreator ofillusion and as materialpigmentin his early Waterseller, to his devotedforegrounding of women preparingthreadforthe weavingof tapestries in the work knownas The Spinners,Velazquez embracedthe verycraftsmanship thatthismoderninterpretationwould have him reject.In Las Meninas, thecasual yetstriking of juxtaposition Velazquez's palettewith the adjacent head of a maid of honor-beribbonedhead matchedto palettein both brush strokeand hue-makes the claim forcraftonce more. In orderto reduceLas Meninas to itscurrent meaning two movesare necessary: first, againstthe evidenceof the pictureit is argued thatartistand kingare representedtogether and theirproximity is seen as thecentral feature ofthework;second, art historians separatewhat theyclaimto be theseventeenth century meaningofthe workfrom itsappearance,whichis put in itsplace as merely theconcern ofmodern
viewers.6

It is thisinsistence on the separationof questionsof meaningfrom questionsof

without Interpretation Representation, or, The Viewingof Las Meninas 33

Fig. 3. Carel Fabritius.The Sentry, c. 1648. StaatlichesMuseum,Schwerin.

representation thatmakesLas Meninas unthinkable within theestablished rubric of art history. The problemis endemicto the field.Beforesuggesting whythisshould be so, let me giveone further of what shouldperhaps example:therecent discovery be called paintings without meaning.I am notreferring to theresponse to a dada-ist but ratherto the attempted maneuver, of "normal" Dutch paintings interpretation such as Fabritius'shauntingSentry(fig.3). The soldierseated with his expectant dog beneathan improbablecolumn,loadinghis gun underthe aspectof sleep,and assimilatedto a complexassemblageof truncated or onlypartly visiblestructures is puzzling,but surelynotmeaningless. Since,however, research has turned up no text or moralmessagewhichinforms thepainting, a scholarhas felt in concludjustified ing thatwhat we have before us is just realism.7 There is a clearand present danger forart historians who fail to findthe kindsof messages-be theymoral,social, or professional-currently considered to be the meaningsof worksby artistssuch as or Bruegel.The dangeris thattheseworksalso will have to be Velazquez, Vermeer, admitted to be meaningless. What is missing is a notionof representation or a concernwithwhat it is to picturesomething. And it is therefore notsurprising thatin recenttimesit is students of textswho have mostsuccessfully turnedtheirattention to theworksofartists such as these-artistswhoseworksare self-conscious and rich in thoserepresentational to whichliterary concerns studieshave been moreattuned. Why shouldart history finditself in thisfix?The answerlies,paradoxically, in a great strength of the disciplineparticularly as it has been viewed and used by literary The cornerstone scholarship. of the art historical notionof meaningis iconography-so namedby Panofsky who was itsfounding father in our time.Its great achievement was to demonstrate that representational picturesare not intended but can be read as havinga secondary solelyforperception, or deeperlevelofmean34
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ing. What thendo we make of the pictorialsurfaceitself?In his seminalessay on He introduces his Panofsky clearlyevadesthisquestion.8 and iconology, iconography his hat in who lifts on thestreet a friend withthesimpleexampleofmeeting subject as a man and the sensethathe is The blur of shapes and colorsidentified greeting. or naturalmeanings, but the the primary in a certainhumorare called by Panofsky conventional meansecondary or is a to hat is a greeting raise the understanding that is thento simply strategy ing. So farwe have been dealingonlywithlife.Panofsky's lifeto a workof everyday the resultsof this analysisfrom transferring recommend choosesto his hat. What Panofsky art. So now we have a pictureof a man lifting in the picture.In what ignoreis that the man is not presentbut is re-presented of a in paint on the surface is the man represented manner,underwhat conditions canvas? terms.Gombrich,quite conArt historiansanswer this question in stylistic leftoff,made it his major task to definestyle. sciouslytakingup where Panofsky the ruling Encapsulated in the brilliantphrase "makingcomes beforematching," critics of literary of Gombrich'sArtand Illusion has provideda generation insight fortheiranalysesof literary convention. But theyhave ignored withthe touchstone witha represenan expressive notion ofstyle thefactthatin theprocessofreplacing Despite eliminates just what he setsout to define. effectively tationalone, Gombrich he is farfrom thathe is the structuralist his emphasison "making"or convention, as a matter of skill-skill in treatsrepresentation sometimes takento be. Gombrich in Westernart, he argues, Pictorialconventions and skill in perception. rendering of naturalisticrepresentation which Gombrichsignificantly serve the perfection Diirer. Draftsman drawinga nude (woodcut),in Unterweysung Fig. 4. Albrecht der Messung (Nuremberg, 1538).

without or, The ViewingofLas Meninas Interpretation Representation,

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Fig. 5. Illustration of theworking of the eye in Johanvan Schatder OngeBeverwyck, (Amsterdam, sontheyt 1664), vol. II, p. 87.

choosesto call "illusion." Basing himself on the irrefutable evidence offered by the studyof perception, Gombrich concludes a perfect by defining as inrepresentation distinguishable to our eyes fromnature. Like the currentcommentators on Las Meninas, Gombricheffectively creditsthe perfect with makingpicrepresentation tures disappear: the questionof representation retreats beforethe perfect illusion Velazquez producesof the painter,the princess, and her entourage. Any meaning mustclearlylie elsewhere-beyondor beneaththe surface of the picture. It is here thatthe strength of Foucault'scommentary on Las Meninas lies. Beginning, as he does,witha determinate and determining notion ofclassicalrepresentation,he finds in thispainting itsrepresentation. Foucault'sexposition ofthispoint proceedsthrough a careful viewing oftheworkwhichis impressive forits attentiveness. His interest in representation giveshimthe motive forlooking whichis lostto thosewho seek meaningin signsof a claim to social status.Foucault finely evokes the themeof reciprocity betweenan absent viewer (beforethe painting)and the worldin view. He arguesthattheabsenceofa subject-viewer is essential to classical representation. This seemsto me wrong.For the reciprocity betweenabsentviewer and worldin view is producednot by theabsenceof a conscioushuman subject, as Foucault argues, but ratherby Velazquez's ambitionto embracetwo conflicting modes of representation, each of which constitutes the relationship betweenthe viewer and the picturing of the world differently. It is the tensionbetweenthese two-as betweentheopposingpoles oftwo magnets thatone might to bring attempt withone's hands-that informs together thispicture. Imaginetwo different kindsof pictures-the first is conceived to be like a window on the perceived world.The artistpositions himself on theviewer'sside of the

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picturesurface and looksthrough theframe to theworld,whichhe thenreconstructs on the surface ofthepictureby meansofthegeometric convention oflinearperspective.We can represent thiswith Diirer's rendering of a draftsman at work (fig.4). The relationship of the male artistto the femaleobserved, who offers her naked bodyto himto capturein his drawing, is partand parcelofthecommanding attitude towardthe worldassumedby thismodeof representation. The secondmode is nota windowbut rathera surface ontowhichan image of the world casts itself, just as lightfocussedthrougha lens formsa pictureon the retinaof the eye. In place of an artistwho frames the worldto pictureit,the world producesits own image withouta necessaryframe.This replicative image is just thereforthelooking, without theintervention ofa humanmaker.The worldso seen is conceivedof as existingprior to the artist-viewer. And in contrast to Direr's artist, let us take two men observing the image made by a cameraobscura(fig.5). (Appropriately, thisis how theworking of the eye was illustrated in a Dutch medical handbookof the time.) The men are in a dark roomwhichis equipped with a light-hole fitted with a lens. They hold out a surfaceon whichis cast the image of the landscape outside.Ratherthan man possessingthrough his art the woman he observes, two men attendto theimageofthepriorworld.The artist ofthefirst kind claimsthat"I see theworld" while thatofthesecondshowsrather thattheworldis "being seen."9 two modes of I am not just imaginingtwo kinds of pictures,but describing thatare centralin Western art. As an exampleof the first, representation Albertian model we mightkeep in our mind'seye a work such as Titian's Venusof Urbino. humanfigThe artistis a viewerwho is actively lookingout at objects-preferably ures-in space, figures whose appearance,considered as a matter of size, is a function of theirdistancefrom the viewer.For the second,which I call the northern or of a largerworldis descriptive mode,thinkof Vermeer'sView ofDelft.A fragment its surface intoa piece ofcanvas,impressing withcolorand lightwithout compressed takingthe positionof a viewerexternalto it intoaccount.No scale or human measure is assumed. In Velazquez's Las Meninas we findthe two as it were comunresolvable poundedin a dazzling,but fundamentally way. While in theAlbertian the pictured picturethe artistpresumeshimselfto stand with the viewer before mode he is world in both a physicaland epistemological sense, in the descriptive accountedfor,if at all, withinthat world. A pictorialdevicesignallingthis is the artistmirrored in the work (as in Van Eyck's Arnol-fini) or a figuresituatedas a looker within,ratherlike a surveyor situatedwithinthe veryworld he maps. In Dutch paintingsof this typethe lookerwithinthe picturedoes not look out. That would indeed be a contradiction since a pictureof this sort does not assume the of viewerspriorto and externalto it, as does the Albertian existence mode. In Las Meninas the lookerwithinthe picture-the one whose view it is-not himself. What is extraordionlylooksout,but is suitablynoneotherthanthe artist

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Fig. 6. Diego Velizquez. Baltasar Carlos and a Dwarf,1631. CourtesyMuseum of Fine Arts,Boston.Purchased,Henry Lillie Pierce Fund.

is that we must take it at once as a nary about this pictureas a representation of the worldthatwe view through of the worldand as a reconstruction replication but so also do we, the viewerson the window frame.The world seen has priority, theworldseen thatis Let me explain.Paradoxically, thisside of thepicturesurface. what, by lookingout (and here the artistis joined by the prior to us is precisely us. But if we had not or acknowledges princessand part of her retinue),confirms of the worldseen would arrivedto standbefore thisworldto look at it,the priority in the first theworldseen is place. Indeed,to comefullcircle, not have been defined mirror) before us because we (along withthekingand queen as notedin thedistant what are commanded its presence.10 38
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ofrepresentation as Las Meninas is producednotout ofa single,classicalnotion It Foucault suggests, but ratherout of specific pictorialtraditions of representation. a stable reading,not because of the absence of the viewer-subject, but confounds because thepainting holdsin suspension two contradictory (and to Velazquez's sense of things, to inseparable)modesofpicturing the relationship ofviewer,and picture, world.One assumesthepriority who is themeasureof ofa viewerbefore thepicture the worldand the otherassumesthattheworldis priorto any humanpresenceand is thusessentially immeasurable. It is the economyof Las Meninas that so many of its elementsshare in this unresolvedambivalence-an ambivalencethat mightbe said to formthe basis of of the Spanish court. PrincessMargarita is made the Velazquez's representation of thesecontending thatVelazquez representative figure modes.We mustnot forget of the littleInfantaforthe center of his masterpiece.1Why should chose a portrait this be so? The questionis not asked. But this diminutive yet royalwoman seems remarkably to answerto the motives, as KennethBurke would call them,of Velazwoman quez's art as well as of his view ofthecourt.Even as he once again confirms as a centralmotif and possession of the European painter'sart,Velazquez questions but at the same timea littlegirl;she is mostmarvelously her role: she is a princess, in bearing,but is herself self-possessed possessedby the courtand by the royallineage markedby her placement just below her parents'mirrored image. Let us considerthe questionof scale. No measurerules here: size and significance are at odds. (I have in mind the dislocationof scale and value belovedby artists-Paulus Potter'shuge youngbull juxtaposedagainsta tinychurch northern is thecenter ofall attention, hermaids,one bentdown steeple.)Though theprincess to meether level,and even a dwarf,dwarfher. Astonishingly, of all the figures the mostdiminished in size are the kingand queen. This is of coursea family portrait framed on the back wall in a contemporary withforebears Dutch mode. Velazquez of lineage and succession had alreadydealt withconditions in an earlierportrait of the late PrinceBaltasar Carlos,thenheirto thethrone. The youngprinceis learning to ridein thecourtyard ofthe Buen Retiro, Olivaresis in themiddlegroundand the tinyfigures of his royalparentsare just visibleon a distantbalcony.It is a kindof rehearsal forLas Meninas, thoughon a much smallerscale and much less complex.12In Las Meninas it is not only the size but the mirroring of the king and the natureof theirpresence.Mirroredand framedon the queen that determines back wall, "reflected" in the tinyInfanta'spose and the attentive gazes out of the theirpresenceis an oblique affair.At court,as in a picture, pictureto the front, orderis producedby acts of representation. The natureand condition ofthesocial ordercontinued to puzzle Velazquez. The formal questionwas of coursepressedon him,livingas he did in the exceptionally and ceremonial worldofthe SDanishcourt.The little princess amongherattendants is a successor to Bacchus amonghis in theearlyLos Borrachos, as well as to Apollo
without Interpretation Representation, or, The Viewingof Las Meninas 39

at Vulcan'sforge. The dwarfs and foolsat court, likethepaintedpeasantsor foundry workers,display a certain misrule. They were expected to challenge etiquette. of Baltasar Carlos witha dwarf(fig.6) focusses Velazquez's earlyportrait on this. it has been argued,commemorates The portrait, thecelebration oftheOath ofAllegiance (juramento) to thefuture king.13A tiny, upright child,dressedin theguiseof a captain-general, consciousof his stationas his eyes confront ours directly, is acan his eyesundirected, companiedby awkwarddwarf, holdinga rattleand an apple which ape the scepterand orb of the king-to-be. Dwarf and futureking present forportrayal, themselves but witha difference. The difference existedin lifebut we see it due to Velazquez's representation. It is Velazquez, afterall, who provides the framework of art. But does art necessarily frame?One could argue that the difference betweenprinceand dwarfis thattheprinceis framed by artwhilethedwarf remainsresolutely freeof it. It is hard not to see the double portrait from the vantagepointoffered by Las Meninas, whereself-presentation, the social order,and the production of art are so prominently displayedand in whichframing plays such a majorrole. Seen one way, Las Meninas is a pictureabout the roleofframing: in theform frames ofpictures, a doorsand windowsmeasureout thewalls at theback and to theright, mirror, while the edge ofthelarge canvas intrudes at theleft. The king,queen, and theirdaughter is for the princesswho posing them,are knownby beingframed.But thereis conoffered trarytestimony by the pictureas a whole. It is, as we have seen earlier, of no bounds and thus with its odd disruption of distinctly unframed, admitting in the framing size it contradicts the orderestablished of the court. significant in thisbriefsectionto beginto suggestways in which It has been my intention an aesthetic pictorial representation, order, engagesalso a social one. It seemsto me, as has been done on occasion,thatVelazquez to be a mistaketo conclude, however, then was) of the Spanish courtand the paints the bankruptcy (as it undoubtedly failureof the royal line.14What is remarkable-in the sense of needingto be remarked-about thisart is something thatVelazquez shareswitha numberofsevenof the complex conditions of teenthcenturyartists.It is that his understanding and social-did notundermine his trustin it. As Las aesthetic representation-both as part of the verycourthe sees through. Meninas shows,Velazquez sees himself

Notes

* An earlierversion and theOther at thesessionon "Literature ofthispaper was presented New York,1981. of the Modern Language Association, Arts" at the annual meeting (New York:Random House, 1. Michel Foucault,The Orderof Things,Englishtranslation Vintage Books, 1973), pp. 3-16.

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to the paintingsee Carl of early reactions 2. For this quotationand fora briefsummary Justi'smagisterial Diego Velazquez and his Times,translated by A. H. Keane (London: H. Greveland Co., 1889), pp. 414-22. 3. See JonathanBrown,"The Meaning of Las Meninas," in Images and Ideas in SevenUniversity Press, 1978), p. 91. teenth-Century Spanish Painting(Princeton:Princeton 4. JonathanBrown names the (putative)centraleventa "royalepiphany."Though admithe nevertheless wants to make tingthatthe king and queen are only shown indirectly, eventis perhapsunprecedented sense of the paintingby arguingthat"an extraordinary to recall an earlier paintingin whicha livingmonarch being shown to us. It is difficult together." Ibid., p. 92. and a painterat workare represented 5. The production of Las Meninas has been relatedto (actuallyonlyjuxtaposedwith) the an academyto replacetheir in Madrid to enhancetheirstatusby founding wish of artists of the members of all craft guildsto avoid the excessivelevies guild,to thegeneraleffort state,and to VelAzquez'slong campaignto obtaina placed on themby the hard-pressed at courtis clear,his campaign therecordofVelAzquez'sambitions knighthood. Although he paintedLas Meninas, and theredOrder fortheknighthood onlybegantwoyearsafter death. See of Santiagoclearlydisplayedon his chestwas put thereonlyafterthe artist's JonathanBrown, "The Meaning of Las Meninas," p. 92ffand also Mary Crawford Volk,"On VelAzquezand the Liberal Arts," The ArtBulletin60 (1978), 69-86. thissupremely to themodernartist, sophisti6. "To the modernobserver, and particularly But it is not to be supcated composition may be the picture'schiefclaim to attention. centuryit was devised for its own sake alone, without posed that in the seventeenth regard for the meaningof the whole." Madlyn Millner Kahr, Velazquez: The Art of Painting(New York:Harper & Row, 1976), p. 173. "There is no ob7. In his recentmonograph on Fabritius,Christopher Brown comments, reference to be foundin the painting, nor is dereliction of dutyan vious topicalmilitary remainsthatno specific meaningwas interpretation. The possibility entirely convincing Brown, Carel Fabritius(Oxford: Phaidon Press, intendedby the artist." Christopher space reducesits human complexity of the architectural 1981), p. 48. The extraordinary to thestatusofan inanimate object.The soldiereventakeson the inhabitant, by contrast, colors of his environment. is shown to be in the verynatureof the Human passivity world.It echoesMars asleep or in repose(a figure pictured by VelAzquez,amongothers at the time)but offers the soldieras a factof pictorial, nature. ratherthanmythological, to the Studyof Renais8. Erwin Panofsky, "Iconography and Iconology:An Introduction sance Art,"in Meaning in the VisualArts(Garden City,N.J.: Doubleday AnchorBooks, 1955), pp. 26-30. I am drawingbetweentwo pictorial 9. This verbal turnis not irrelevant. The distinction of theproperties modeshas certainanalogiesto thedistinction thatcan be drawnbetween per libre)and thoseof narration and speech(knownas styleindirect represented thought se in written and speech,represented seeing(forthat thought language.Like represented is a usefuldesignation atmode) manifests extraordinary forthe northern or descriptive tentiveness that interplaybetween sender and rewithout,however,acknowledging in ceiver-be it worldand vieweror two speakers-that normally characterizes pictures the Italian mode or language when spoken. See Ann Banfield,"Where Epistemology, History9 (1978), 417-54. Style,and GrammarMeet," New Literary I think 10. As myinterpretation thatthelongheld viewoftheintrinsically puzzling suggests, natureofLas Meninas is justified. The questionis whyand in whatrespects we takeit to be puzzling.A powerful John Searle positssome of the same studyby the philosopher of whichI have written. contradictions His conclusion differs from mine because Searle

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11. 12. 13. 14.

assumes thatthereis a singlecanon of classical pictorialrepresentation withwhichthe is notconsistent. VelAzquezpicture The correction I offer to his viewing is to identify the inconsistency with the presenceof two identifiable and incompatible modes of pictorial representation. It is, then,not the exceptionto a singlerepresentational canon, but the tensionbetweenthe two that is at the heartof the picture.VelAzquezis engagedin a of the natureof the artist'srelationship testing and questioning to his work and to the art.The refutation worldas positedin Western of Searle's position by Snyderand Cohen of groundsto what they(and Searle) would accommodates the pictureon the narrowest call theclassicalcanon of pictorial representation. By arguing(correctly) thatthevanishing pointis at the far,open door and thatthemirror on thewall cannotbe reflecting the kingand queen standing before thepicture butmustrepresent thekingand queen as they are depictedon the hiddencanvas, theythinkthattheyhave ruled out the paradoxical natureof VelAzquez'swork.But as Leo Steinberg wroterecently, the mirror appears to reflect not only thekingand queen paintedon thehiddencanvas,butalso, and contradicthekingand queen as theystandbesidetheviewerin front ofthepicture. torily, Ambiguity remains.See John Searle, "Las Meninas and Representation," Critical Inquiry 6 on Las Meninas: Paradox (1980), 477-88; Joel Snyderand Ted Cohen, "Reflections Lost," Critical Inquiry 7 (1980), 429-47; Leo Steinberg, "Velazquez' Las Meninas," October 15 (1981), 45-54. In 1656, at the timeof her portrayal in Las Meninas, Margaritawas fiveyearsold. She and her stepsister, Maria Teresa (soon to be marriedto Louis XIV of France) were the children of Philip IV. onlysurviving For a discussion of thispainting Estate in England see whichis ownedby the Grovesnor of PrinceBaltasar Carlos in theRidingSchool," EnriquetaHarris, "Velazquez's Portrait The Burlington Magazine 118 (1976), 266-75. A Palace for a King (New Haven & London:Yale See JonathanBrownand J. H. Elliott, University Press, 1980), p. 56 and pp. 253-54. to thiseffect see JohnH. Elliott,Imperial Spain 1469-1716 (LonFor a passingremark don: Edward ArnoldLtd., 1963), p. 381. VelAzquez,after all, choseto devotealmosthis in and depictionof the Spanish court. One can entire workinglife to advancement his art in this regardto the worksof Manet. This nineteenth contrast usefully century had neither a courtnor who admiredVelazquez beforeall otherartists, Frenchpainter, The veryqualityof Manet's paintedsurin representation. trust Velazquez's sustaining facesrevealsas much.

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