Snyder - 1985 - Las Meninas and The Mirror of The Prince

Las Meninas and the Mirror of the Prince
Joel Snyder
It is ironic that, with few exceptions, the now vast body of critical literature
about Diego Velazquez's Las Meninas fails to link knowledge to under-
standing-fails to relate the encyclopedic knowledge we have acquired
of its numerous details to a convincing understanding of the painting as
a whole. Las Meninas is imposing and monumental; yet a large portion
of the literature devoted to it considers only its elements: aspects of its
nominal subjects, their biographies, and their roles in the household of
the queen or the king; niceties of court etiquette; concerns about clothing,
and shoes (though not one shoe appears in the painting), and the small
cup of water offered to the Infanta Margarita (such cups were made of
scented red clay imported from the East Indies and, after their contents
had been imbibed, were eaten in the belief that the clay would bleach
the skin to a lighter and-in a kingdom ruled by Hapsburgs-a more
regal tone).
This increasingly intimate discussion of the painting's details is not
altogether beside the point; some of this information deserves to be
integrated into descriptions of the painting as a whole. But a reader of
these descriptive accounts soon begins to suspect they are offered in the
hope that some new detail might provoke an understanding of the entire
painting, might prove to be the key to our comprehension of it. In fact,
Las Meninas invites such analysis. Some nineteenth-century critics called
it "photographic" in its naturalism ("as [if seen] in a camera obscura"or
"an anticipation of Daguerre's invention"), in the profusion of its detail,
and in the alleged "snapshot" quality of its composition.' The underlying
Critical Inquiry 11 (June 1985)

?1985 by The University of Chicago. 0093-1896/85/1104-0005$01.00. All rights reserved.
539
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540 Joel Snyder Las Meninas
motive of this understanding ought not to be dismissed, even though

the photographic analogy is clearly grotesque, in terms both of history
and visual sensibility. Although we know a great deal about the contention,
in seventeenth-century Spanish art theory, that a major function of art
is the perfecting of nature according to ideal standards, Las Meninas
nonetheless is most commonly taken to be a pure spectacle memorializing
an incidental moment, seemingly explicable solely in terms of what is
apparent in it.
In addition to inviting description and analysis in terms of its nominal
subject matter, Las Meninas also provides a nearly perfect inducement
for critics to frame their interpretations in distinctly modern terms. The
painting can seem to be the triumph of a precocious modernist who
shows himself engaged in the process of painting, hands filled with brushes
and palette, standing beside a large canvas and observing his subjects.
Moreover, he places himself in a room serving as his studio, the walls of
which are covered with paintings (in fact, there is hardly any open space
at all on the walls). And even the two paintings he allows us to make out
are discernible imitations-copies of originals-of oil sketches by Peter
Paul Rubens, a master of the art of painting. All that this supposed
modernist presents seems to lead to and from the mirror, on the room's
back wall, and the "natural"image it reflects; but neither this mirror nor
its reflection are natural-they are, like everything else on the canvas,
the product of the painter's art.
Las Meninas offers these invitations and inducements-the results
of accepting them, however, have not been terribly rewarding. Honoring
the invitation has given us something on the order of an exhaustive
catalog of parts that fails to specify the unit served by its carefully itemized
components. Alternatively, yielding to the inducements has provided us
with statements of unity (generally expressed in the various and sometimes
incomprehensible dialects of contemporary profundity) that are oddly
incapable of accounting for the various parts. A disgruntled Parmenides
seems to be writing the scenario, sometimes giving the One without the
Many and at other times giving the Many while leaving out the One. My
difficulty, then, with much of the literature about Las Meninas is that it
fails to explain the quality and depth of our interest in the painting. This
Joel Snyder is associate professor of humanities and of art and design

and is chairman of the Committee on General Studies in the Humanities
at the University of Chicago. He is currently working on a book about
the foundations of perspective. His previous contributions to Critical
Inquiry are "Photography, Vision, and Representation," written with Neil
Walsh Allen (Autumn 1975), "Picturing Vision" (Spring 1980), and "Re-
flexions on Las Meninas: Paradox Lost," written with Ted Cohen (Winter
1980).

Critical Inquiry June 1985 541
frustration with the literature may be misplaced. Perhaps it is more properly

located in the exchange between the viewer and the painting.
The painting is ingeniously constructed (fig. 1). The six figures and
the dog in the foreground occupy a space that is rather shallow and not
very wide, but they are unconfined--they do not huddle. The complexity
of the painting's arrangement of figures is equaled by its extraordinary
use of perspective and lighting. Nonetheless, the net effect of this display
of complexity and ingenuity is one of decorous ease, of casual grace. Our
expectations are somehow reversed, however: something is not quite
right about the comportment of the figures.
FIG.-
1-Dieg ;Vzu, ?..M.. Te -
FIG.I.--Diego Velazquez,LasMeninas,1656. The Prado, Madrid.

In most of his narrative paintings, Velazquez keeps the gaze of each

of his figures internal to the composition. The effect is to assure the
beholder that the depicted activity is unposed, that those who are shown
are unaware of being seen.2 In the majority of Velazquez's portraits, on
the other hand, the subjects make no pretense of being unseen; they
look outward in the direction of the viewer. Nearly all these subjects are
shown showing themselves, adopting graceful, and frankly public, poses.
Of course, not all of his formal portraits lack elements intended to convey
spontaneity. There are equestrian portraits of Philip III, Philip IV, and
Prince Baltasar Carlos showing them looking outward, aware of being
seen and shown, on horses "caught" in the act of rearing. But the effect
is studied, composed, the exhibition of a public persona in serene control
of a beautiful, though willful, brute. In Las Meninas, however, the spon-
taneity of the figures is achieved precisely by the denial of some of the
conventions of spontaneity. Seven of the nine figures stare outward,
aware of being seen-but their response to being seen is not accompanied
by a posture appropriate to being shown. Those whom we would expect
to adopt the conventional comportment of displayed royalty do not. The
Infanta accepts the cup of water while looking outward from the corners
of her eyes. She does not look at us.
What seems so frustrating about Las Meninas, then, is the sense it
gives of being transparent and yet closed to us. It is devised to address
a specific audience, one accustomed to seeing the Infanta accepting a
cup of water, a youthful midget prodding a dog, an older lady of honor
gesturing and gabbing sotto voce to her escort, and a painter staring
intensely at it, looking for something it is in a position to know but we,
who are not part of that audience, are not. The painting makes promises-
and gives assurances-that its spectacular elements have been presented
for reasons that are not public, but we, as members of another audience,
don't understand the language in which those reasons are expressed.
The painting offers its contents to us and simultaneously withholds
them.
I want to take some care, now, to emphasize that I am not looking
for a final account or last word on the painting. What I believe is absent
from the literature, with a few exceptions, are convincing identifications
of the subject of the painting-as distinguished from identifications of
its various subjects-of why just these elements combine to form this
painting. To say, as both Palomino and Carl Justi do, that the painting
is a portrait of the Infanta Margarita is a step in the right direction. But
it fails to explain the presence of all the other figures in it that compete
for our attention, all the elements that make the painting more than just
her portrait.3 To suggest that Las Meninas is a demonstration of the
nobility of painting and of its proper place in the liberal arts, as Jonathan
Brown does, is to locate the interest of the painting in the conditions of
its origination and in the means employed to produce the demonstration.4

CriticalInquiry June 1985 543
This is surely interesting and, if correct, revealing; but, again, it does

not bring us to terms with the subject of the painting-with what the
painting is tout ensemble.
Given the apparent impossibility of achieving an understanding of
Las Meninas through the accretion or agglomeration of facts about its
elements, it is not at all surprising that some critics have sought the
source of its fascination in elements of the picture at work beneath its
surface, so to speak. During the past few years, a number of attempts
have been made to explain our continuing interest in and perplexity
with Las Meninas by establishing something unorthodox or uncommon
about the structure of its perspective. These observations, in turn, have
been used to support conclusions about fundamental and previously
unsuspected attributes of the painting and, unexpectedly, about repre-
sentation in general. Part of what these analyses supposedly reveal is
something about the way in which we, as viewers, are forced to position
ourselves imaginatively in relation to the scene shown in the painting.
In viewing Las Meninas, we are engaged, we are told, in an endless
recapitulation, treading upon a painter's Mobius strip, playing a dizzying
game of shifting topoi-first stand here, then there, then over there,
then back here-trading personality, then gender, then number-I am
me; I am Velazquez; I am the king; I am the queen; I am the king and
the queen; I am me again. These analyses do not progress by atomizing
the painting and "privileging" (to use a well-entrenched term) one or
another of its identifiable subjects or objects; they proceed, rather, by
placing the source of our fascination with the painting in a single structural
element, one which is, in an important sense, invisible-its perspective.
This seems doubly curious to me: it locates the power of Velazquez's
undeniable masterwork within its invisible structural elements and con-
sequently reduces the various persons and objects depicted (as well as
the manner of representation) to a secondary and almost incidental im-
portance.
Las Meninas is projected in perspective, but merely noting this does
not help in determining the ends (if any) served by its beguiling pictorial
structure.5The perspective of the painting does provide a unified pictorial
setting, a "rational space." But aside from providing a coherent field of
representation, does it function in some way that is essential to our
understanding of the painting? If Velazquez had moved the center of
projection (the point of view) somewhat to the left or right (keeping
everything else more or less constant), would the painting cease to be
Las Meninas? Must an interpreter of the painting address the particular
point of view that establishes it? More to the point, must an interpreter
be concerned with the consequences of the work's perspective structure?
Does anything follow from Velazquez's particular use of perspective that
can teach us something about the subject of Las Meninas and aid us in
understanding it?

The two most notable accounts of Las Meninas that locate its central
significance in its perspective are Michel Foucault's essay "LasMeninas,"
which appears as chapter 1 of The Orderof Things and John Searle's essay
"LasMeninas and the Paradoxes of Pictorial Representation."6 I want to
take a brief look at some of the claims made by these authors.
Foucault makes the following points about Las Meninas:
The painter ... is staring at a point to which, even though it is

invisible, we, the spectators, can easily assign an object, since it is
we, ourselves, who are that point: our bodies, our faces, our eyes.
[P. 4]
The painter is turning his eyes towards us only in so far as we
happen to occupy the same position as his subject. [P. 4]
The painter's gaze, addressed to the void confronting him outside
the picture, accepts as many models as there are spectators; in this
precise but neutral place, the observer and the observed take part
in a ceaseless exchange. [Pp. 4-5]
[The mirror's] upper edge is exactly on an imaginary line running

half-way between the top and the bottom of the painting, it hangs
right in the middle of the far wall (or at least in the middle of the
portion we can see); it ought, therefore, to be governed by the same
lines of perspective as the picture itself; we might well expect the
same studio, the same painter, the same canvas to be arranged
within it according to an identical space; it could be the perfect
duplication. [P. 7; emphasis mine]
In the depths of the mirror there could also appear-there ought
to appear-the anonymous face of the passer-by and that of Ve-
lazquez.... But because they are present within the picture, to the
right and to the left, the artist and the visitor cannot be given a
place in the mirror: just as the king appears in the depths of the
looking-glass precisely because he does not belong to the picture.
[P. 15]
And finally:
In the realm of the anecdote, this centre is symbolically sovereign,

since it is occupied by King Philip IV and his wife. But it is so above
all because of the triple function it fulfils in relation to the picture.
For in it there occurs an exact superimposition of the model's gaze
as it is being painted, of the spectator's as he contemplates the
painting, and of the painter's as he is composing his picture (not
the one represented, but the one in front of us which we are dis-

cussing). These three 'observing' functions come together in a point

exterior to the picture: that is, an ideal point in relation to what is
represented, but a perfectly real one too, since it is also the starting-
point that makes the representation possible. [Pp. 14-15]
Foucault's argument hinges, in its entirety, upon the correct description

of particular structural elements in the painting. Unless his alleged technical
facts about the painting are correct, his conclusions are ungrounded.
What are his facts? There are, at a minimum, four assertions that must
be true of Las Meninas for Foucault's argument to approach intelligibility,
let alone truth. The first is that the painting is "governed" by perspective;
the second is that this perspective finds its point of origin (its center of
projection) at the point at which the gazes of all those figures who are
looking out of the painting converge; the third is that the king and queen
occupy this very point-in other words, the point of projection for the
painting is shared by the painter of Las Meninas and by the models of
the painter who is shown in the painting; and the fourth is that the king
and queen, who are absent from the painting, see their persons reflected
in the mirror and that, since we as spectators occupy the same position
(that is, have the same perspective on the scene as do the king and queen),
we should see ourselves reflected in the mirror. Additionally, given the
perspective of the painting and the law of reflection, we should see the
painter of Las Meninas reflected next to ourselves and/or the king and
queen in the mirror. On Foucault's account, the mirror seems to be an
emblem of Malthusian population theory.
There is something almost theological about Foucault's analysis. The
point of projection that is the first principle, the sine qua non of the
painting's perspective, is, by definition, an absolute unity. But on Foucault's
reading, it is also a plurality-a "triple."This point belongs to the king
and queen, but it also belongs to the maker of this painted world and,
finally, to each of its spectators. Our fascination with the painting inheres,
we are told, in the unity of this trinity and the trinity of this unity.
The contribution of John Searle, the noted philosopher, to the lit-
erature of Las Meninas concerns this last point. Searle wants to know
what it means to say that the center, or point of projection, is occupied
by the king and queen-that Las Meninas establishes their perspective
on the scene-when it is also, of necessity, the point from which the
painting is projected and the point from which it must be viewed. In
order to find out what this might mean, in order to give analytic precision
to this description of Las Meninas, Searle sets out to formalize the structure
of what he calls "classical pictorial representation" ("LM," p. 477). In
effect, he attempts to give a formal account of what it means to say that
a picture is paradoxical. And in keeping with the classic work done in
the early part of this century by Bertrand Russell on the paradoxes of
set theory, Searle wants to give the notion of pictorial paradox genuine

content. A paradox, strictly speaking, is not merely a grave oddity, some-

thing that appears to be one thing and then appears to be another, or
something that appears to be one thing but really is another; a paradox
is somehow systemically intractable.7 And, as Russell showed, a paradox
is always the product of attempted self-reference.
A complete exposition of Searle's essay would involve an analysis of
his notion of what an illusionistic depiction is and how it works. In order
to save time, I will take a shortcut and simply report that, according to
him, any picture made in accordance with the "axiom system of classical
illusionist representati[on]"-again, this is his terminology- will show a
possible view of the world ("LM," p. 483). Searle does not think that the
painter must actually occupy a point in order to paint the world as it
looks from there-he requires only that the spot be a logically possible
point of vantage. According to Searle, this is what it means to call a
picture illusionistic (see "LM," pp. 480-83). Now, his claim about Las
Meninas is that the point from which it is projected is closed to the painter
(and to the viewer as well); it is occupied by the king and queen. Searle
understands this as a logical closure. It is comparable to doing an algebraic
proof that begins by positing something like "Letx equal 9." Having been
assigned a specific value, the variable is no longer variable; it cannot take
on another value without changing the proof. But since the picture exists
and shows us this perspective, it had to be projected from some other
point (and, again, this is meant logically, not as a matter of fact)-but
that would establish another perspective, a different picture and not the
one we see. As if this were not complicated enough, there is the additional
oddity that we, as viewers, must take the same point of view (he says) in
order to get the illusion, though that point is not open to us; and yet,
since we do get the illusion, it must be open. Thus, the painting is
paradoxical, which means that it must be self-referential in some way.
And therefore we are, as Searle says, bothered by Las Meninas (see "LM,"
p. 477). It turns out that one of the "axioms of classical illusionist rep-
resentative painting" has been violated-again, this is very much like
Russell's version of syntactic paradox ("LM," p. 483). Searle gives the
paradox in this way:
1. The picture is painted from the point of view of the subject,

not the painter.
2. We the spectators are seeing ourselves in that mirror and
hence are Philip IV and Maria Ana, in the illusionist reading.
Neither of these propositions would need to bother us much
if they were not underlain by a third.
3. The artist, and indeed any artist, is precluded from occupying
[the point of view]. ["LM," p. 486]

Searle now adds a second, deeper "level" of paradox, by proposing that

we understand the painting to be showing us Velazquez in the act of
painting Las Meninas itself. He says:
4. The painter having lost his point of view ... is painting the
picture from another point of view inside the picture zone.... From
that point of view he is painting [the scene we see in Las Meninas],
but he can't be painting [it] from that point of view because the
point of view which defines [the scene in Las Meninas] is [outside
Las Meninas]: strictly speaking [the scene represented in Las Meninas]
exists only relative to [the point from which it was projected]. He
is painting the scene we see, but he can't be because he is in it.
From where he is in the picture, he can see and paint a different
scene but not the scene represented in Las Meninas. [ "LM,"p. 486]
Thus, Searle's facts about Las Meninas are the same as Foucault's,
and the central facts for both critics come down to these: Las Meninas is
painted in perspective; it is the perspective of the king and the queen;
it is also the viewer's perspective and that of the painter (not the painter
we see in the painting but the one who made Las Meninas); and, finally,
the center of projection-the point of view for the painting-is directly
opposite the mirror in the rear of the room.
But these are not the facts about Las Meninas. Were it possible to
construct the room represented in the painting and to stand at the center
of projection (that is, at the point outside the room that establishes this
perspective), an observer would not see himself or herself in the mirror.
The painting is not projected from a point perpendicularly opposed to
the mirror.8 The perspective of Las Meninas is thoroughly conventional,
and the "behavior" of the mirror that reflects the image of the king and
the queen is thoroughly natural (or as natural as the reflection in a
depicted mirror can be). The arguments of Foucault and Searle depend
on getting the facts about the painting straight, and each fails to do this:
the failure is demonstrable, and its result is the invalidation of their
arguments.
I want to anticipate some objections which might be made to what
I have just said. The claims that Foucault and Searle make are about
properties of the painting and not about the attitudes or beliefs of its
audience. Both Searle and Foucault are clear about this. Searle claims
that Las Meninas is paradoxical because it violates what he calls "axioms
of pictorial representation" ("LM," p. 483). Thus he cannot cast his ar-
gument in terms of the beliefs of a few viewers of the painting or, for
that matter, in terms of the beliefs of all the viewers of the painting. The
issue here is not what the audience believes the perspective to be but
what the perspective is. A paradox is the result of a structural property

of a language and not of the "belief system" of its users. If someone were
to say, earnestly and emphatically, "All my vital signs are normal, and I
have been dead for the last two months," we may conclude we know
something important about him or her, but we will not, on the basis of
his or her statement, be in a position to call him or her a maker of
paradoxes.
The perspective of Las Meninas is orthodox, and brilliantly so (fig.
2). Figure 2 lays out the skeletal structure of the painting. Las Meninas
is projected in what is often and loosely termed "parallel,"or "one-point,"
perspective. In a projection like this, the principal point, that is, the point
defined as being on the same axis as the point of projection and per-
pendicular to a line drawn from that point to the picture plane, is also
the point of convergence, or focus, for the orthogonals. (Orthogonals
are the lines in the painting that are thought of as being parallel to one
another and at right angles to the picture plane. They are represented
as converging to a point, termed the "vanishing point.") In other words,
the vanishing point for the orthogonals in Las Meninas is also the principal
point for the painting. Thus, the orthogonals x-x', y-y', and z-z', when
extended, are found to converge at a point P. And, by definition or, if
you prefer more authority than that, by the laws of geometric projection,
the center of projection-the point of view-is directly opposed to this
point of convergence. Las Meninas is projected from a point distinctly to
the right of the mirror. In other words, if we were gazing from the center
of projection of Las Meninas at a construction of the room represented
in the painting, we could not see ourselves in the mirror.
What could we see? Again, the best way to get a sense of how to
solve this problem is to think of yourself walking about in this constructed
room, looking at the mirror, trying to find the place from which you
could see someone standing at the center of projection. The law of
reflection, first given geometric expression by Euclid in the Catoptrics,
known in Latin as Especularia, states that the angle of reflection is equal
to the angle of incidence. Applying this law to the represented space of
Las Meninas reveals the source of the reflection to be the canvas standing
before the artist in the painting. Thus, if we attend solely to the geometry
of the painting and to the law of reflection, we must conclude that the
image in the mirror is a reflection of the double portrait of Philip and
Maria Ana that is hidden from our direct view.9 Velazquez's library
contained at least five texts providing discussions of the law of reflection,
including Euclid's Especularia and Vitellionis' peri optike, or perspectiva
("Witelo's theory of vision"), as well as important works on perspective
by Danielo Barbaro and Albrecht Diirer, among others. The library may
also have contained a manuscript on perspective in Leonardo's hand,
quoted by Velazquez's teacher and father-in-law, Francisco Pacheco, in
his Arte de la pintura.10

FIG. 2.

Las Meninas does not show us the point of view taken by the absent
king or queen: it is not projected from a point directly opposed to the
mirror. This single fact is, by itself, enough to destroy the arguments
given by Foucault and Searle."
I want to make just two more points on this subject. Both Foucault
and Searle believe that, in approaching a picture made in perspective,
a spectator must position himself or herself at the point of projection in
order to see the picture correctly. This is a central claim of both their
analyses; yet for most pictures made in perspective, this claim is simply
false. Occupying the point of projection (for all perspective pictures
projected onto a flat plane) provides no special advantage for a viewer-
assuming that the point of projection can be correctly identified, an
assumption that might seem unwarranted given Foucault and Searle's
failure to locate it. And for viewing some pictures, standing at the center
of projection is a major disadvantage. For example, imagine that I make
a richly detailed drawing of a building projected perfectly in parallel
perspective. Imagine further that it is ten-and-a-half feet high and nine
feet wide and that I place the principal point at a height of four feet
from the bottom of my paper and three feet from its right-hand edge.
I then develop a special liking for a twelve-inch by twelve-inch segment
of the drawing that is located at the extreme upper left edge of the
drawing. Suppose this section of the drawing shows some windows and
ornamentation. I now cut out this piece of the picture, hang it on a wall,
and discard the rest. If I follow the Foucault-Searle prescription on this
matter, I shouldn't place myself directly in front of the picture: instead,
I must hang it in such a way that its upper edge is about four feet above
my eyes, walk about five feet to the right of its left edge, and stare straight
ahead into a blank wall, taking in through my peripheral vision whatever
I can of the cutout drawing.
Obviously, when we view details of paintings projected in perspective,
we look directly at them without any concern whatsoever about locating
and standing at the principal point. And we miss nothing by doing this.
It is demonstrable, both in theory and practice, that standing at the point
of projection of a picture made in perspective is unnecessary for nearly
all projected pictures. As viewers, we need not occupy any particular
place in order to take in everything most paintings have to offer. There
is something confused and confusing about saying that because a picture
is projected from a certain point we must place ourselves at that point
to make sense of the picture.
Finally, I would like to raise a question about the enterprise of trying
to explain our interest in a work of art by locating its source in some
logical conundrum like a paradox. The unfortunate truth about paradoxes
is that they are not of themselves terribly interesting. How interesting is
it to learn, for instance, that if a sentence of a certain description is said
to be true, it follows that it must therefore be false, and that if it is false,

it must therefore be true? A tautology, unlike a sentence that happens

to be true, is not merely true-it is true without running a risk; it is
necessarily, wretchedly true. Likewise, a contradiction, which is the con-
junction of a sentence and its negation, does notjust happen to be false-
it is not the sort of thing that could possibly be true. A paradox combines
the worst features of tautology and contradiction: it is both wretchedly
true and wretchedly false. What we need to ask ourselves is this: How
long could a genuine, intractable paradox maintain its interest for us?
For my part, I cannot imagine how the kind of interest that might be
eked out of a paradox could sustain the attention and engagement provoked
by Las Meninas.
Why is it that so many critics who have turned their attention to Las
Meninas insist that we stand immediately opposite the mirror? Why have
they insisted that the painting is projected from the point of view of the
absent king and queen, who are present only in the reflection at the back
of the room? A rough answer is that the painting's construction encourages
the viewer to accept this conclusion solely on the basis of the way things
look. The mirror is, of course, centered and central in the painting; it
is the vanishing point that is off-center.'2
The mirror with its diffuse reflection is flanked by the two chamberlains
to the king and queen-the painter Velazquez, aposentadorto the king,
and Jose Nieto Velazquez, who stands in the open doorway at the back
of the room, gazing straight ahead, waiting for the queen. The mirror
is carefully placed, cupped in a space created by the figures of the painter,
the two maids of honor with the Infanta between them, and Nieto, the
queen's aposentador.Perhaps it would be better to say that it is cradled
in much the way that a faceted, specular gemstone is supported in its
setting. Moreover, it is indexed throughout. The bent arm of Nieto forms
a V, the left side of which (his forearm) indicates the mirror. The elbow
that forms this V is directly above the principal point, which also happens
to be the vanishing point for the orthogonals in the picture. (Is Velazquez's
placement of a V just above the focus of the painting's orthogonals a
coincidence, or is it a signet, an abbreviated inscription of his authority?)
On the other side of the mirror, the painter's left arm supports his palette
and brushes, which point in two directions at once, like an arrow with a
head at each end-indicating the canvas before him and the mirror in
back, mediating between the picture he is painting and the image in the
mirror. His right hand holds a brush at an angle, poised above the palette,
pointing insistently at the palette and mediating between it and the canvas.
On the right side of the mirror, the tips of the raised fingers of the
midget and the dwarf form points on a line that joins the angled torso

of the maid and moves upward to the line of the bent forearm of Nieto
which leads to the mirror. All these elements combine to draw our attention
to the mirror, while there is almost nothing at all in the painting that
works to move us to the principal point under the V that is Nieto's bent
arm-to the point at which the orthogonals converge. There is no tes-
sellated floor in this painting; the upper and lower edges of the framed
paintings on the right-hand wall (that might form continuous lines) are
interrupted by the bays; the line at which the floor on the right meets
the wall is totally occluded by the five figures who stand adjacent to the
wall. Leo Steinberg tells us that the perspective of the painting is both
"obvious" and "self-evident"; but despite my admiration of his work and
of him, I cannot agree.'3 For all the engagement of the eye with the
mind, we are not natural-born surveyors. It takes thought about the
orthogonals and imagination about their intersection just to begin to get
some sense of the painting's perspective. Only in the area in which the
ceiling joins the wall on the extreme upper-right (an area low in value,
almost devoid of color, and without immediate interest) does the painter
give us uninterrupted orthogonal lines. These are given in the form of
the moldings at the juncture of the ceiling and the wall on the right, and
are given grudgingly, obscured in deep shadow, as if concealed or buried;
these lines stop so far short of their focus that it is left to us to extend
them from the ceiling (where they end), across the back wall, through
the doorway, to just beneath Nieto's elbow, and then to reflect on the
implications of this tracing. Most of us have been acquainted with Ve-
lazquez's masterwork in the form of rather small photographic repro-
ductions. Such reproductions can barely hint at the immensity of the
painting (ten-and-a-half feet high by nine feet wide), can hardly suggest
the spectacle of Las Meninas. Yet we have a great advantage over the
original audience for the painting. In looking at these miniature repro-
ductions of Las Meninas, we can determine, with no more than the
straightedge of an envelope or a six-inch ruler, the structure of its per-
spective. What was for the original audience a considerable act of imag-
ination is for us a trivial exercise in drawing short straight lines. The
perspective of Las Meninas is not obvious; it must be sought out-and
even when it is correctly identified, its consequences are far from apparent.
Velazquez has done much in Las Meninas to divert our understanding
of what we are seeing: he has supplied a set of clues that enchant us into
believing we understand what is shown, have grasped the truth of the
presentation. I am not suggesting that there is anything at all wrong with
the way the room and its figures are presented to us. On the contrary,
everything is in perfect order. There is nothing illusory in the presen-
tation-and yet, an illusion is in fact created. But this illusion is not in
the painting; it is in us, and it is the illusion of understanding.
Look at the angled canvas in the painting. It contains, as I have said,
the source of the image reflected in the mirror. The canvas is audacious,

but it would be insolent if it permanently blocked our access to its content.

The painting in progress on the canvas is available to us, however, through
speculation-through the kind of reflection that is preeminently the
province of the painter. But there is something else hidden by this slanted
and masterfully placed canvas, something else in back of it. The canvas
blocks us from-perhaps it is more accurate to say that it makes us
oblivious to-the unseeable left wall of the room.
Figure 3 is a schematic outline of the room in Las Meninas (fig. 3).
There are good reasons (both internal and external to the painting) to
assume that the room we see depicted is symmetrical.14 Though we might
make other assumptions, this is the most conservative and the least dramatic.
Thus, the left-hand wall begins just a little bit to the right of the painting
on the far wall showing Juan Martinez del Mazo's copy based upon
Rubens' oil sketch of the myth of Arachne. Figure 4 "reveals" the left
wall hidden by the canvas (fig. 4).15 The wall is drawn by extending two
orthogonals from the principal point leftward to their intersections with
the extended horizontal lines of the floor and the ceiling. The figure
shows one (strict, geometrically warranted) consequence of the painting's
perspective: clearly, it is impossible for the painting to have been projected
from the center of the room, looking straight into the mirror. If that
had been the case, the foreshortening of both walls would necessarily be
identical. Had Velazquez provided even a small part of the wall on the
left, it would have been immediately obvious that the viewpoint of
the picture is well to the right of the mirror. By blocking any glimpse of
the wall on the left, Velazquez has removed one of the major clues for
detecting the center of projection. This receives comic confirmation through
an exaggeration achieved by extending the constructed left-hand wall in
figure 3 to the plane in which the wall on the right terminates (fig. 5):
this changes the aspect ratio of the painting and turns it into a horizontal
picture. Once we see the wall on the left, we cannot think of the painting
as having been projected from a point directly opposite the mirror.
So far, I have been speaking about facts that are internal, so to
speak, to Las Meninas. The moment we posit the implied, external, presence
of the king and queen, we enter the realm of interpretation. Nonetheless,
there is near universal agreement that the object of the gazes of the
figures in the painting is the king and queen, who stand outside the
depicted scene as subjects of Velazquez's art. Let us take this as granted.
In addition, it seems congenial to common sense to suppose that the
king and queen are to be conceived as positioned directly opposite the
mirror so that they may observe their appearance while being painted.
Thus, we can think of them standing immediately to the right of the
depicted canvas, looking straight into the mirror, while Las Meninas itself
is projected from a point distinctly to their right and considerably in
back of them. But under the conditions that hold for this painting, what
would they have seen from their point of view? Would they have looked

FIG. 3.
FIG. 4.

FIG. 5.
directly into the mirror? The answer is no. Under the circumstances
shown in the painting and with the supposition that the king and queen
are directly opposite the mirror, the consequence of the perspective is
marvelous: the king and queen would have stared directly at Velazquez,
whose figure would have blocked them from seeing much of the mirror.
In other words, if we were to make a ground plan of the depicted room
and include the king and queen in it, we would see them staring directly
at the painter, who stands with his back to the mirror.
At the outset of this essay, I asked if we could learn anything about
Las Meninas by considering its perspective and the implications of the
represented space. I want to address this question now, but I will begin
with a brief explanation of the terms of my analysis. I wish it could go
without saying that an artist is not necessarily constrained by the geometry
of a painting projected in perspective. Surely Velazquez could have
painted anything in the mirror that might have served his purpose,
tempered only by considerations of pictorial integrity, credibility, and
decorum. Similarly, it would be foolish to argue that he was constrained
by the law of reflection-that he was somehow required to follow the
laws of the natural order. It should also be clear by now that I am out
of sympathy with those critics of Las Meninas who would reduce it, if
they could, to the status of a pictorial dilemma by emphasizing its per-
spective to the exclusion of nearly everything else in the painting. Studying
the perspective structure of a painting is generally not terribly helpful
in coming to terms with its overall significance. It is, however, a serious

mistake to conclude that because Velazquez had the artistic freedom to

disregard the rules of geometry and the law of reflection, he could have
found no serious pictorial interest in inventing an ingenious perspective
scheme designed to promote specific pictorial consequences. If it is un-
reasonable to demand that the geometry of any picture projected in
perspective is always central and essential to its description and analysis,
it is no less unreasonable to claim that a picture's geometry is never
important in such determinations.'6
Whether or not the function of the perspective of Las Meninas is
programmatic, whether it is of interest or use to us, can be answered
only by addressing it in the context of analyzing the painting as a whole.
The indisputable fact is that the painting has an ingenious geometric
structure. It is difficult to imagine that Velazquez could have been unaware
of the remarkable consequences of the geometry of Las Meninas given
his artistic power, his resourcefulness, and-if the holdings of his library
are any measure-his broad and deep intellectual curiosity about math-
ematics, mechanics, optics, and the theory of vision. This difficulty, though,
is external to the painting. I raise it only to elicit one consequence of
denying, in principle, the relevance of the painting's perspective: we
would have to conclude that Velazquez stumbled onto a highly complex
composition which, upon "technical" analysis, establishes the source of
the mirror reflection as the canvas standing before the artist in the painting.
An interpretation of Las Meninas proposing some source for the reflection
other than the canvas, or one that denies the need for finding any source
for it at all, is left with the problem of explaining, or ignoring, why the
painting has the geometry it does.'7
I have claimed that the source of the reflection can easily be mis-
identified; it can be located outside the painting and in the space ostensibly
occupied by the king and queen. I have also suggested that the source
of the mirror image is correctly understood to be the hidden image which
Velazquez shows himself painting; it is the product of the painter's art.
Thus, if the mirror image were thought of as ambiguous (though I think
there are good analytic reasons to refrain from thinking this), it seems
quite clear to me that the painting provides the means for disambiguating
it (however, I shall suggest later that the mirror itself is genuinely equiv-
ocal-and in a far more interesting sense than the one at hand).
I want now to develop an approach to Las Meninas that builds on
the following suppositions: the painting is calculated to engage our
amazement (our admiracion, as the Spanish writers of the time would
have put it) by its very immensity and boldness; it is spectacular, and we
are enchanted by the spectacle. But once we begin to think about the
painting in terms of our initial, though faulty, understanding of it, once
we think about the source of the reflection of the king and queen and,
perhaps, about the expectation of seeing ourselves reflected in the mirror
(surely a breach of decorum in the court of Philip and Maria Ana), we

are led to reconsider the question of description-the question of what

the painting shows us. This difficulty necessitates an examination of the
painting's perspective structure, among other things. And this in turn
leads us to conclude that the mirror image-which is, after all, the painting
of a mirror reflecting an image-must be seen as a reflection of the art
of Velazquez and not as an image whose cause is in the natural world.
But this is only part of the speculation-call it the "technical" part. We
can consequently determine other factors that lead us to see the mirror
image as exemplary, as an ideal image that can have as its source, or its
original, only another and final ideal or exemplum. In other words,
considerations of both a technical and a figurative nature lead us to
conclude that the painting is not contingent (as has often been suggested)
upon the world beyond the picture plane. The painting is complete in
itself; and though it gestures outward and beyond itself, it does not solicit
a reality that might complete it. In truth, it gestures to a world that at
its best is a reflection of Las Meninas.
I want to suggest, further, that the strategy involved in this passage
from illusion to dis-illusion (from seeing the mirror image as a reflection
of the corporeal king and queen standing outside the painting to un-
derstanding it as the reflection of the royal double portrait hidden from
our view, from the failure of our initial and illusory understanding to
our consequent realization of the truth) was a central feature of the works
of the most influential Spanish writers of the period-most particularly,
of Baltasar Gracian and Pedro Calderon de la Barca.'8 The effect of
this analysis is to free Las Meninas from the stranglehold of exclusively
naturalist interpretation. Likewise, the viewer is freed to recognize the
painting's figurative values, values that are central to the Spanish art
theory of the time. Once a figurative interpretation is established, we are
able to reconnect those elements of "Baroque illusionism" clearly present
in the painting to the central concerns of exemplarity they were intended
to engage.'9
Now, what purpose or purposes are served by discovering the source
of the reflection within the painting, by determining the nature of the
original whose reflection we see in the distant mirror? Why is it important
to understand the mirror image by reflecting upon it and understanding
it, finally, as an imitation of the painter's art?
3
In the letters of the ancient art of statecraft, there is a genre of texts
written by philosophers and men of practical affairs as guides to the
education of princes. This genre originates with Isocrates' text To Nicocles
and extends into the late Renaissance. With few exceptions, these texts
are exemplary, joining instruction in politics to ethical and religious

guidance. In Latin, the most common name for this kind of text is
speculumprincipis;in German, Furstenspiegel;in Spanish, espejodeprincipes;
and in English, "the mirror of the prince." The term "mirror"in the titles
of these texts is most usual, but other terms are used in its place. Thus
in this genre we also find the "looking glass," or the "glass,"or the "ideal,"
or the "idea" of the prince. All of these terms function in a similar way:
they indicate ideal norms of conduct, character, and thought. This old
sense of "mirror image" has nearly vanished from our language; it is the
notion of a mirror reflection that is exemplary, or ideal, a reflection that
can be reached only through art and can be seen only by the inner eye,
a reflection whose source is not and cannot be corporeal in origin. It is
also the reflection of an artistic ideal, since the figure of the perfect or
exemplary prince is the creation of human fashioning. Understood in
this way, the mirrored prince is an ideal, integral being whose intellectual,
moral, and political virtue-in other words, whose character-is fashioned
by art, in accord with divine doctrine and the wisdom of men of arts,
letters, and practical affairs. The mirror of the prince is an object as well
as the product of imitation; so the character of the creator of the ideal
is forever implicated in it. The mirror of the prince is only one type of
a host of exemplary manuals that flourished in the Renaissance. A profusion
of texts bore such titles as The Mirror of the Gentlemanor The Mirror of the
Courtier-books that are an essential part of the process of self-fabrication.
Likewise, Gracian'stexts are manuals of self-fashioning that provide maxims
for the construction of the self according to exemplary standards. These
books themselves are works of art that provide guidance for the production
of a work of art-a work of art that is the self itself. Velazquez owned
a copy of one of the most popular and influential of these works, Baldesar
Castiglione'sBookof the Courtier[IIlibrodel cortegiano],a dialogue concerning
the qualities of the "perfect" courtier and court lady and the central role
of the courtier in the education of the "perfect prince."20
As a literary figure, mirror imagery has dual possibilities: it may
reflect exemplary qualities of mind and action, or it may reveal corrupt
qualities that, like the exemplary, can be seen only with the inner eye.
In either case, the source of the reflected image cannot be apprehended
by the naked eye. "The Mirror of the Synfulle Soule," a poem translated
by Elizabeth I from the French, reveals corruption that cannot be the
object of human vision: since the corruption resides in the internal springs
of an agent's actions, it can be seen only in a mirror that images the soul.
The Speculum impietatis,published in England in 1644, claims to reveal
the Jesuits "in their true colours." It bears a motto on its title page that
reads: Qui cum Jesu itis, non itis cum Jesuitis ("You that love Jesus, flee
the Jesuits" ).
The many critics of Las Meninas who have located the source of the
mirror reflection outside the painting, in the persons of the king and
queen, have been too literal in requiring the mirror to present an image

whose source is corporeal. This mirror can reflect only images existing
in and through art (and by "art,"I mean here the liberal arts and what
the playwright Calderon called the "art of arts"-painting). The mirror
in Las Meninas is the mirror of majesty: it is an exemplary image of Philip
IV and Maria Ana, an image whose counterpart cannot be seen in the
persons of the king and queen. It is an image of character, disposition,
thought-an image whose source is in the imagination and whose cause
is in art.
It seems unimaginable that any literate member of the court, most
especially Philip himself, could have missed Velazquez's ingenious adoption
of this literary figure and its transformation into a visual trope. The
mirror reflection is equivocal: it is a pun. Properly seen within the context
of a naturalist reading, the image is the reflection of the hidden portrait
of the king and queen. Understood as an allusion to the mirror of the
prince, or "the mirror of majesty," however, the context shifts from the
natural or literal to the ideal or figurative, and the reflected image becomes
a mirror in the second sense: it is the image of exemplary monarchs, a
reflection of ideal character. In the vocabulary of rhetoricians contemporary
with Velazquez, this is a sylleptic pun; the symbol (the mirror and its
image) has dual significance, each of which is independent of and yet
reinforced by the other. Moreover, because the painting provides two
distinctly different functions for the mirror and two separate definitions
for the word "mirror," it establishes a metaphoric content: the mirror
reflecting their majesties is "the mirror of their majesties." A conceit or
trope of this kind is a mark of the artist'sacuity and ingenio(very imprecisely,
his "genius for clever invention," his "artistic character"), and a sign of
his intention to astonish, delight, and educate.
During the years of Philip's reign through 1656 (the year in which
Las Meninas was painted), numerous books devoted to the education of
the exemplary prince were written in Spain and dedicated either to Philip
himself or to his son, Baltasar Carlos.21 Perhaps the most important of
these, at least for my purposes, is Idea de un principepolitico cristiano[The
ideal Christian political prince], a book of empresasby don Diego de
Saavedra Fajardo, published in 1640, with numerous subsequent re-
printings (and translations into English, Dutch, French, and Italian).
Saavedra was an important minister, ambassador, and close friend and
adviser to the king and served also as a knight of the Order of Santiago
(the order into which Velazquez was initiated in 1659). His book is
representative of the Spanish mirror literature of the period and also
casts light upon contemporary attitudes toward art and education.
Saavedra begins his elaboration of the education of the ideal prince
with a discussion of the relation of nature to art in his commentary to
empresa 2 (the motto for which is Ad Omnia), which he then articulates
throughout the remainder of the book.22Interestingly, art is emblematized
by two of the materials of painting-brush and paint-while nature (the

FIG. 6.-Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, empresa 2, Idea de un principe politico cristiano

[The ideal Christianpoliticalprince], 1640.
infant prince) is given as the blank canvas, and the Divine Creator is
represented as an artist (as a pair of hands holding the brushes and paint)
(fig. 6). Saavedra opens the discussion in this way:
With the brush and colors, art displays its power in all things.
With them, if painting is not nature itself, it is very similar to it....
Art cannot animate bodies, but it does confer grace, movements,
and even the affections of the soul upon them. If nature could, it
would be jealous of art, but since she is benign and decorous, she
makes use of art in her works for she does not put the last touch
on those things which art can perfect. For this reason, man was
born naked, without any particular language, with the canvas of
his understanding, memory, and fantasy blank; so that on these
tablets doctrine might paint the images of the arts and sciences and
education might write its own documents. Although all the seeds
of the arts and sciences are in the soul, they need cultivation, which
should be done in youth, since youth is tender and open to the
reception of ideal norms and quick to understand the sciences.23
Saavedra concludes this commentary by noting that the palace art

to which a young prince should be exposed ought to be exemplary and,

if possible, ought to portray the glorious deeds and decorous lives of his
ancestors. The prince should be encouraged to imitate the lives and
actions of exemplary figures from his own family, so that he might fashion
himself in accord with their ideal characters.
I have quoted from Saavedra to give some sense of the interrelatedness
of art and ideality in Spanish Renaissance thought. Art represents nature,
but it is. also responsible for perfecting it: by means of education and
the inculcation of the proper ideals, art completes the work initiated by
nature. A natural prince is an imperfect one, whereas a prince who
aspires to Christian virtue must be "cultivated"-and the process of cul-
tivation is preeminently the process of art. Anyone even remotely familiar
with Spanish drama of the period knows that one of its major themes
concerns the constancy and perfection (and imperfection) of princes.
Whether the prince is the initially brutish Segismundo in Calderon's dark
masterwork, La vida es sueno [Life is a dream], who achieves self-mastery
through the adoption of Christian ideals, or the accomplished and courtly
don Juan de Portugal in Lope de Vega's El principeperfecto[The perfect
prince], the theme of the perfecting of princes or of the life of a perfect
prince is central to the literature of the time.
Las Meninas cannot be understood apart from these concerns of
Spanish Renaissance culture, and, in particular, it cannot be viewed ex-
clusively as a masterwork of "Baroque illusionism." It addresses issues of
ideality and perfection, of art and nature, that were the currency of
Spanish culture. When critics discuss the painting in terms of the gestures
it makes to "reality" (that is, to the king and queen, who stand in front
of the painting on the viewer's side of its picture plane), they make an
unwarranted assumption: they assume that Velazquez and his contem-
poraries understood the material world to be constitutive of reality and
understood art to be somehow in competition with nature for ontological
equality (an equality it could achieve, presumably, only through the in-
clusion or importation of nature into its works). But the issues here are
considerably more complex than this easy division of art from the natural
world would allow.
Las Meninas must be taken in progressively; it is spectacular in its
size and execution. If the viewer remains enchanted by this spectacle,
however, he or she will fail to engage the painting. This is not to say
that anything is out of order in the presentation or that the enchantment
is avoidable. But understanding the painting does require the passage
from enchantment to dis-enchantment. To comprehend the subject of
the painting, to comprehend its conceit, the viewer must address the
painting in terms of its ideality. I am not proposing an appearance/reality
division here, because it is wrong to think of the painting as having
"levels"at all. Velazquez has set up the task for the beholder in a different
way: it is not a question of depths of meaning in the painting; it is a
question of the extent and quality of participation and engagement of

the beholder with the painting. An understanding of the spectacle can

be attained only through reflection; but in contemplating it, we come to
find that the painting addresses concerns unapparent at first sight.
Las Meninas provokes the viewer into believing that it is understandable
solely in terms of what he or she immediately sees in it. This comprehension
of the painting is an illusion of understanding; it fails, in practice, to
comprehend the painting. In coming to understand the painting's complex
and ingenious structure, the viewer ascertains the source of the image
of the king and queen. By reflecting on that source and identifying the
double significance of the mirror, the viewer is enabled to relate the
technical to the figurative elements: to find how the mathematical per-
fection of its perspective, the princely, moral, and familial virtues that
lead to and from the exemplary sovereigns in the mirror, the glowing
Infanta who stands in a special relation to the image of her parents, and
its many other elements combine in Las Meninas in the poised tip of
Velazquez's brush.
Velazquez's contemporary, the Jesuit conceptistaBaltasar Gracian,
discusses in discourse 55 of his Agudezay artede ingenio (1648) the relation
of truth, invention, and wit by means of a conversation between the
personifications of wit (la Agudeza) and truth (la Verdad). Wit begins
by saying:
"There is no dish more tasteless ... than a dry desengaho ["dis-

illusion, dis-enchantment"], there is no dish more bitter than a
naked truth. Light that strikes head-on, torments even the eyes of
an eagle. For this reason, the sage doctors of the spirit invented the
art of gilding truths, of sweetening desengaho.... I mean you must
make yourself politica ["decorous, courteous"]. Dress yourself up in
the manner of Deceit himself, disguise yourself with his very adorn-
ments; with this I assure you the remedy and even the conquest of
Engano ["falsehood, deceit"]." Truth opened her eyes and began to
walk in her artful way. Truth uses invention, she presents herself
to us by means of indirection [rodeo("circumlocution, detour")]: she
overcomes with stratagems; she paints at a distance what is very
close; she speaks of the present in the past; she dazzles the senses;
she belies the affections and, by means of ingenious circumlocutions,
stops at her intended mark.24
Gracian is addressing questions of allegory here, and I do not mean to

suggest that Las Meninas is properly understood as an allegory. But I do
want to suggest that Velazquez is addressing the same ends and employing
means that are formally very much like those described and used by
Gracian. Las Meninas demands a critical attitude of desengano, of dis-
enchantment and dis-illusion. Again, in Gracian's masterwork, El Criticon,
Critilo, the critic who knows and is weary of the civil world, discusses the
necessity for reflecting on everything we see:

We enter into the world with the eyes of our understanding shut,
and when we open them to knowledge, the customof seeing renders
the greatest wonder neither strange nor admired despite the dis-
closures ofjudgment. Therefore, the wise have repaired this defect
by reflection, looking back again, as it were, to a new birth, making
everything, by search and examination into its nature, a new subject
of astonishment; both admiring [amazed] and critical [in the sense
of judging and understanding] of their perfections. So we enter
into the garden of the universe, walking from our births to our
deaths, without the least glance on the beauty and perfection of it,
unless some wiser heads chance to look back and renew their pleasure
by review and contemplation.25
Critilo then adds this final observation: "Things are not taken for
what they are but for what they seem. Those who look within things are
rare; those who are satisfied with the look of things are many."26This
concern with looking back, with re-viewing, with reflection and speculation,
is an essential part of the subject of Las Meninas. Velazquez presents
himself in this work as contemplating the subjects of his painting, reflecting
on something more fundamental than the way they look: he is thinking,
of course, about the way they should be represented. The results of his
speculations are reflected in the mirror at the back of the room and in
turn reflect upon everyone within the room, all of whom-with the
exception of the painter-are unaware of the ideal presence behind them
which governs their composition and their being, though they are fully
aware of the persons of the king and queen before them. But even if
the persons in the room were to turn and look at the mirror, they could
not see the exemplary image that Las Meninas makes available to us.
Velazquez is well aware that the depicted Velazquez knows what image
appears in the mirror-though his back is turned to it-and knows also
that if he were to turn and look at it, he could not see what we see in
the mirror; he would see himself. What we see is disclosed exclusively
through the art of Velazquez. What we see is the ideal character governing
this princess and these members of the king's and the queen's households.27
Velazquez has placed the mirror of his king and queen at the center
of this household; the activities of this court radiate from it; the example
of the ideal king and queen governs the activities and moral qualities of
this court. The Infanta Margarita, her head turned in the direction of
the painting's point of projection (as if she had just been looking in that
direction, perhaps at the fussing with the dog, but with her eyes pulled
as sharply as possible to her right), so that she looks at the cause of the
painter's contemplation, is an image in a double sense. She is, in her
physical being, the natural reflection of her parents (as the image of her
parents is the natural reflection of their portrait). And as she is shown
here, being educated in the artist's studio, fashioned into an image under

the rule of the mirror of her majesties, she is in the process of becoming
"the mirror of a princess."
What, then, is the subject of Las Meninas? Palomino is certainly
correct: the painting is a portrait of the Infanta, but it is clearly more
than a portrayal of her appearance. Las Meninasencompasses the conditions
both of the Infanta's being and of her cultivation. The portrait concerns
art and artifice, fashioning and instruction. The situation of Las Meninas
within the artist's studio guarantees, as no other setting could have, the
painting's intellectual placement-its topic-the locus of its argument.
This studio is the proper place for art; it is given over to art, to its practice
and exhibition. It is preeminently a place devoted to fashioning, wit,
invention-to the study of truth and the display of ideals. The portrait
addresses the Infanta and the conditions of her education. In a sense,
Las Meninas is the painted equivalent of a manual for the education of
the princess-a mirror of the princess.28 And as all such works do, and
do self-consciously, it runs the risk of overstepping the bounds of decorum
by presuming to instruct the sovereigns, by elevating the author to the
level of the sovereign or, perhaps, to a level higher than the sovereign.29
However, for all the obvious audacity of Las Meninas-the apparent
refusal to disclose the subject of the depicted canvas, the inclusion of the
artist in the painting, the equation of art as such with painting, the use
of clues that mislead the viewer, and so on-Velazquez presents the
households of the queen and of the king (of which he was a member)
as being ruled by the ideal standard of conduct and character established
by their majesties. A reflection of this ideal work of art appears in the
mirror: the original can be seen only by reflection and only in the work
of Velazquez; it does not and cannot have any existence apart from his
ingenio-apart, that is, from Las Meninas.30
Las Meninas appears to be engaged solely with issues concerning the
structure of appearance in painting, but it uses this engagement to create
and confirm an intimation of ideality. The painting is a speculation about
and around an idea-an idea whose very substance concerns imitation,
an idea thoroughly familiar to the painter and his audience, and one
that was, finally, like a second nature to the king-the mirror of the
prince. And as this exemplar/model/ideal emerges through the course
of viewing and re-viewing the painting, it should become clear that Las
Meninas is a speculation about speculation, a reflection by an exemplary
artist of an ideal image that engenders images.
A version of this paper was read at a symposium on Diego Velazquez's Las Meninas
sponsored by the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, in April 1984. Part 1 of this
paper includes material first discussed in "Reflexions on Las Meninas: Paradox Lost," an
essay I wrote with the philosopher of art T. E. D. Cohen, who is also my friend and
colleague. Aside from the discussions in part 1 that re-present or reflect those given in our

coauthored paper, Professor Cohen is not responsible for any error of thought or fact that
might appear in the present essay. I am indebted to a number of friends for reading and
commenting on earlier versions of this paper, most especially to Linda Seidel, Margaret
Olin, W. J. T. Mitchell, Roger Utt, and Ted Cohen. In addition to executing the diagrams
that illustrate the essay, James Elkins provided valuable comments on a number of geometric
and art-historical topics. Professor George Haley of the Department of Romance Languages
and Literatures at the University of Chicago provided especially helpful guidance and
comments on the literature of Renaissance Spain. Finally, Professor Barbara Kurtz of the
Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Southern California engaged
me in many wonderful hours of conversation devoted to Spanish religious practice, theology,
literature, and art theory of the medieval and Renaissance periods. Her penetrating comments
on the secular and religious works of Pedro Calder6n de la Barca were important in helping
me clarify some vexing problems concerning the relation of "Baroque illusionism" in the
paintings of Velazquez to the values of exemplarity and ideality that are central to the art
theory of the Spanish Renaissance. She also provided invaluable assistance with translations
from the Spanish; all translations, unless noted otherwise, are my own. I am, of course,
solely responsible for any errors that may appear in this paper, no matter how much I
might wish it were otherwise.
1. Gustav Waagen, paraphrased in Carl Justi, Diego Velazquezand His Times (London,
1889), p. 419; William Stirling-Maxwell, quoted in ibid.
2. Some of Diego Velazquez's paintings that come quickly to mind are: Joseph'sBloody
Coat (1630), The Forge of Vulcan (1630), Mercuryand Argus (1658), and Las Hilanderas (1645-
48). There are exceptions; e.g., three or four figures in the Surrenderof Breda (1634-35)
stare outward, while the two central figures of Ambrogio Spinola and Justin of Nassau
and the rest of the many others are shown concentrating on the surrender. The figures
looking outward testify to their awareness of the historic nature of the occasion, to the
propriety of documenting the victory, and the chivalric mode of accepting it.
3. See Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco, El museopictdricoy escala 6ptica (1715-
24; Madrid, 1947), p. 920, and Justi, Diego Velazquezand His Times, p. 414.
4. SeeJonathan Brown, Imagesand Ideasin Seventeenth-Century SpanishPainting (Princeton,
N.J., 1978), esp. chap. 4, "On the Meaning of Las Meninas," pp. 102-10.
5. Praise of the mathematical precision of painter's perspective is practically universal
in the art theory of the Renaissance: if any one element (aside from the royal patronage
of artists) could be singled out as responsible for the Renaissance belief in the nobility of
painting, it was the incorporation of the liberal art of mathematics into the practice of
painting. It is therefore surprising to find so many different opinions among historians of
art about the perspective of Las Meninas and its implications. In criticizing a painting,
analysis of its perspective structure is generally not terribly interesting or useful, but when
such analysis is called for, it does not seem that there could be much room for opposed
opinions on the subject. Most questions about the geometry of a painting can be settled
once and for all by mathematical demonstration. Presumably this feature of perspective
was the major cause for much of the praise it received in the Renaissance. Of all the claims
made about the perspective of Las Meninas, my favorite is a sort of limiting case-it is the
claim that the painting is not in perspective at all. The "proof" of this assertion is that
although orthogonals (those lines that are taken to be at right angles to the picture plane)
are supposed to converge at the same point in a perspective projection, they fail to do so
in Las Meninas. And, indeed, there are four orthogonals in the painting, and only three
of them do converge, or "focus," at one point (though the fourth comes very close to it).
What does the fact that all four do not come to focus prove about the perspective of Las
Meninas? It proves nothing. This sort of "argument"betrays a fundamental misunderstanding
of perspective. Most schematic accounts of perspective for beginning students provide
examples using ideal figures-perfect cubes and other rectangular solids. A projection of,
'say, a cube in what is commonly called "one-point perspective"necessarily shows all orthogonals
coming to focus at precisely the same point. But the accurate projection of a room in an

ancient palace like the Alcazar in Madrid (where Las Meninas is set)-a room that is not
an ideal rectangular solid-will not bring all the lines we take to be orthogonals to a single
focus.
6. See Michel Foucault, "LasMeninas,"The Orderof Things: An Archaeologyof the Human
Sciences, trans. pub. (New York, 1973), pp. 3-16; all further references to this work will
be included in the text. See also John R. Searle, "LasMeninas and the Paradoxes of Pictorial
Representation," Critical Inquiry 6 (Spring 1980): 477-88; all further references to this
work, abbreviated "LM,"will be included in the text.
7. Searle should be warmly applauded for this attempt (the only one with which I am
familiar) to give sense to the term "pictorial paradox." Many critics of the visual arts speak
of paintings or elements of paintings as "paradoxical,"and I admit to being baffled by the
term when applied in this manner. What does it mean to say that a painting simultaneously
showing, say, the back and front of a person is "paradoxical"? Such a figure may be odd
in the extreme, unconventional, unexpected, hard to make out, but why "paradoxical"?
The famous duck/rabbit is sometimes seen as a duck, sometimes as a rabbit, and always as
one or the other, but why should we call it "paradoxical"?Some of M. C. Escher's drawings
depict impossible structures that appear to be drawn with absolute adherence to geometric
projection. They are brain-numbing, but they are not paradoxical. I have been criticized
by some friends, including the editor of this journal, for attempting to restrict the use of
"paradox" to a technical meaning, but given the abandon with which the term is tossed
about, restriction seems to be a pretty good idea. I do not think such restriction is a form
of stipulation. Until someone can say what it means to call a painting a "paradox" (i.e.,
beyond telling us that it means "weird" or "really strange" ), we would do better to avoid
its use altogether.
8. It is easy to forget that the only way to see your own face in a mirror is to stand
at right angles to it. If you cannot see your face in a mirror because you are standing ever
so slightly to its left or right and are, say, staring into the wall on which it is hung, no
amount of moving away from the mirror will allow you to see your face in it. Mirrors are
treacherous things. We all use them and think we understand them "intuitively,"but most
of us do not understand them at all. Some examples: Do mirrors reverse writing right to
left? If a piece of paper with writing in English on it is held up to a mirror, we will see
the mirror reverse the words. True? Yes, true, but the mirror has not reversed anything
at all. We do the reversing. Take a piece of clear plastic or cellophane and write a sentence
on it in waxy crayon. Hold it up to a mirror so that the writing appears, as usual, reversed
in it. Now look at the writing on the clear plastic. It is reversed also. When we hold a page
to a mirror, we do so with the back of the page to us and with the writing toward the
mirror: we reverse the page relative to the way we read it; the mirror passively reflects
this. Two more questions: (1) As you move away from a mirror, do you see more or less
of the room in which you stand? (2) Imagine that you have a mirror as long and as wide
as your face, held at eye level and that you place your face practically against it so that the
mirror is filled from top to bottom with its reflection. Walk away from the mirror. How
much of the mirror is filled by your face when viewed from a distance of ten feet? From
one hundred feet? From infinity? Answers: (1) You can see less and less of the room as
you move away from the mirror, more and more as you approach it. It is just like looking
through a window into a room. (2) The size of your face relative to the size of the mirror
is constant. Your face will not get smaller and smaller as you move away; it will always
appear to fill it.
I cite these facts about mirrors to emphasize the very human habit we all have of
assuming that we easily and naturally understand what we see. In the case of mirrors,
however, we not only fail to understand what we see-most of us cannot adequately describe
from memory the way mirrors work. I believe that Velazquez depended upon this typical
failure of understanding in composing Las Meninas, and not only in regard to the mirror
but regarding similar issues of sight as well.
9. Once the principal point P has been determined, it becomes possible to determine
the area from which the image in the mirror must originate. Assume any proportion for

the room. Draw a line ae; at any convenient place, parallel to the far wall of the room.
The point e is assumed to be beneath the center of projection. Locate m, and m2, the points
on the floor directly beneath the right and left edges of the mirror. Now, draw m,d and
m2c. On the perspective diagram, this is done by drawing a line through P to intersect the
line ae. Measure ac = ce and bd = de. Draw mlb and m2a. The area directly in front of the
mirror is cd and the area reflected by the mirror is ab. These calculations are valid for any
of the possible proportions of the room (which cannot be determined without appealing
to evidence external to the painting), since the stretcher depicted by Velazquez intersects
the far wall. This insures a constant ratio between the viewer's distance from the wall and
his or her distance from the canvas. The result is also independent of the assumed position
of the upper left corner of the far wall.
Some art historians find discussions of the painting's perspective out of place and a
sign of vulgarity in art-historical discourse. These scholars are reminiscent of the literary
types with whom Leonardo argues in his Paragone-those detractors of painting who see
it as manual, mechanical, and vulgar, too tied to mundane concerns. It is noteworthy that
many of these art historians refuse any reference at all to "mechanical" considerations of
perspective and the laws of mirror-image formation even while adopting "laws"of another
kind-those of the artistic conventions of a given period. Thus it is possible for this kind
of art historian to argue that the law of reflection is irrelevant to the analysis of Las Meninas
and maintain at the same time that the reflection in the mirror could not possibly originate
from the artist's depicted canvas since there was no established tradition then of double
portraits of the king and queen of Spain. (And even this presumption is not exactly correct:
Titian painted a double portrait of Charles V and Isabella of Portugal, and-as Leo
Steinberg has pointed out-Alonso Cano's first commission after his appointment at court
in 1638 was for a double portrait of Ferdinand and Isabella.) Artistic practice is, of course,
central to art-historical analysis, and it is significant that Spanish art theorists (and artists)
of Velazquez's time wrote extensively on the importance of the study and use of perspective.
10. A listing of the "significant books" in Velazquez's library was compiled shortly
after his death; see Varia Velazquena,ed. Antonio Gallego y Burin, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1960),
2:397-99.
11. In a footnote to her recent essay on Las Meninas, Svetlana Alpers notes, quite
correctly, "[Joel Snyder and Ted Cohen] think that they have ruled out the paradoxical
nature of Velazquez's work" ("Interpretation without Representation, or, The Viewing of
Las Meninas,"Representations1 [Feb. 1983]: 42 n. 10). Her reading of our essay (i.e., "Reflexions
on Las Meninas: Paradox Lost,"CriticalInquiry7 [Winter 1980]: 429-47) is perfectly accurate.
We think exactly that, and we believe further that we eliminate the paradox on the very
grounds provided by Searle and Foucault. But Alpers then claims that we "accommodate[d]
the picture on the narrowest of grounds," adding that, despite the geometric correctness
of our analysis, "ambiguity remains," and remains in the form of a "contradiction," since
the mirror appears to reflect the persons of the king and the queen and yet the perspective
makes that impossible (p. 42 n. 10). As a source of support for this remaining ambiguity,
she cites Steinberg's essay "Velazquez' Las Meninas"(October19 [Winter 1981]: 45-54). But
Steinberg seems interested in showing that there is an irresolvable instability in the painting-
an inherent ambiguity and not a contradiction or a paradox. Ambiguity is not a condition
of paradox. For example, in his essay, Steinberg says that our contribution to the literature
of Las Meninas is "unusually conscientious" (p. 46), and while Cohen and I can see at least
two ways of reading this phrase, we have found nothing paradoxical about-it. Alpers has
missed our point: there is nothing paradoxical about ambiguity; there is nothing ambiguous
about paradox. In disproving the "paradox" of Las Meninas, we never denied that the
mirror does indeed appear to reflect the king and queen themselves. We maintain in our
essay that the painting leads the viewer quickly, inevitably, to this conclusion. We also
maintain that, upon reflection, this initial judgment is unsupportable.
12. The mirror is not placed at the geometric center of the canvas, but it is at the
pictorial center of the painting. The center of the canvas is at the top leftmost edge of the
door molding to the right of the mirror.

13. Steinberg, "Velazquez' Las Meninas," p. 46.

14. Brown argues convincingly that the room depicted in Las Meninas is not imaginary
and identifies it as a room in the Madrid Alcazar known as the Galeria or Pieza principal
del cuarto del principe (see Images and Ideas, pp. 96-101). He claims that room shown in
Las Meninas is "the faithful reproduction of the appearance of the pieza principal"(p. 101).
Brown's position on the role of perspective in Las Meninas is interesting but also contradictory.
He argues that Velazquez produced the "reproduction of the appearance of the pieza
principal" through the "brilliant" use of perspective techniques: " [Las Meninas] is cast in
the form of a superb illusion of reality, one unequalled in [Velazquez's] work. The choice
of this large format and exceptional spatial construction is essential to interpreting the
painting and indeed helps to clarify and enrich its significance" (p. 96). Brown notes that
"perspective, in short, became a guarantor of painting as a liberal art, and that may be
why Velazquez cast his manifesto [Brown contends that Las Meninas is a manifesto declaring
painting to be a noble and liberal art] in the form of one of the most brilliant perspective
compositions ever conceived." And again, "Hence, the splendid illusion in Las Meninas was
the result of many years of interest and preparation (and, in addition, fullyjustified Leonardo's
faith in perspective as the expression of a form of knowledge)" (pp. 96-97, 98). Brown
retreats from these statements, however, when dealing with the mirror reflection-and, in
doing so, he undermines the integrity of his argument about the brilliance of Las Meninas
as a perspective construction. He maintains that attempts to locate the source of the mirror
reflection through analysis of the perspective of the painting depend upon the unwarranted
assumption that "Velazquez must have been reproducing a scene that was taking place
before his eyes, with the intention of making it indistinguishable from what he was actually
seeing." Beyond this, Brown claims that such analyses have depended upon the assumption
"that human vision and perspective construction were subject to the same rules" (p. 89).
But all of these objections are irrelevant to the issue. The question of the integrity of the
perspective of Las Meninas, and of the consequences of the perspective, has nothing to do
with issues of human vision or of the dependence of Las Meninas upon an actual scene
Velazquez was seeing, or recalled seeing, or imagined himself to have seen. Indeed, Brown's
use of certain phrases opens his arguments to the kinds of objections he makes against
analysts of the painting's perspective. To refer to Velazquez's work as "the faithful repro-
duction of the appearance of the pieza principal" seems to mean that this is the way the
room would have been seen from a certain vantage point. He also speaks of the "splendid
illusion" created by Velazquez. Brown claims, as well, that past attempts to analyze the
geometry of Las Meninas make it "apparent that the perspective of the picture could be
drawn in several ways" (p. 89). If this were so-though of course it is not-how would a
viewer ever know that the painting was in perspective at all? What could it possibly mean
for a painting to be "one of the most brilliant perspective compositions ever conceived," if
its geometry can be rendered variously? Perhaps all that Brown means is that Las Meninas
presents a brilliant illusion of space. This, however, would be hard to square with his claim
that the picture is a demonstration of the place of painting in the liberal arts (owing to
the geometric foundation of perspective).
15. The figures reproduced here may strike some readers as another lapse into irrele-
vant "mechanical"analysis. My thesis about Las Meninas does not depend upon such analyses;
I find them useful for giving graphic expression to my claims about the consequences of
the painting's perspective.
16. My claims about the perspective geometry of Las Meninas do not depend upon
an equation of perspective and vision, nor are they dependent upon the relations between
the picture and the room in the Madrid Alcazar it represents. In other words, these claims
are about geometric relations that are properties of the painting. It is a mistake to confuse
questions of what we see with questions of how we represent what we see (or imagine
seeing). One can use certain perspective pictures to determine facts about what they represent,
but no part of my argument is concerned with such issues.
17. The question of what Velazquez could have known about the principles and
practice of perspective can be addressed aside from any consideration of Las Meninas. As

noted previously, a number of books in his library were devoted specifically to the practice
of perspective, as well as to geometry, algebra, and to the then current theory of vision.
His teacher and father-in-law, Francisco Pacheco, read extensively in the literature of
perspective and discusses its use and principles in his Arte de la pintura (2 vols. [1649;
Madrid, 1956]; the discussion appears in vol. 1, bk. 2, chap. 8). It seems reasonable to
assume that Pacheco instructed the young Velazquez in the principles of perspective in
terms not fundamentally different from those he uses in his book on painting. Pacheco
considers perspective one of four necessary elements contributing to the "grandeur of
drawing" (1':425). In discussing its importance, he quotes at length from a number of
Spanish and Italian authorities, including Andres Garcia de Cespedes, Juan de Jauregui,
Juan de Arfe, Leon Battista Alberti, Giorgio Vasari, and Leonardo. It should be noted
that Pacheco understands perspective (following Leonardo) to comprehend three means
by which depth or relief can be achieved in painting. The geometric means is preeminent,
but the perspective of color (the diminution, with increasing distance, of color saturation)
and the perspective of disappearance (the loss, with increasing distance, of shape or form)
are essential parts of perspective theory and practice. What is most important about Pacheco's
discussion is that it emphasizes the importance of both the study and use of perspective
to the contemporary practice of painting. Clearly, then, Velazquez had more than just a
passing familiarity with the theoretical and practical aspects of perspective.
18. In our essay "Reflexions on Las Meninas: Paradox Lost," Ted Cohen and I propose
a similar progress from ignorance to understanding. Steinberg's response, in the form of
a footnote to his essay on Las Meninas, is direct and terse:
Snyder and Cohen concede, in their envoi, that the picture allows, even encourages,
precisely this "mistaken opinion" [the location of the viewpoint in direct opposition
to the mirror]. They suggest that the viewer is meant to realize his mistake in a
"further realization." But this is not how a picture works. If two readings are allowed,
then both are effectively present and ambiguously meant. ["Velazquez' Las Meninas,"
p. 46 n. 4]
This essay repeats and expands upon the cause of this criticism. Steinberg claims that if a
painting "allows"a reading, it remains "effectively present." He is claiming that no amount
of evidence and no argument to the contrary can block the "reading" of Las Meninas that
places us in direct opposition to the mirror. Steinberg argues for the integrity of both the
perspectivally sanctioned "reading" and the reading that puts us face-to-face with the
mirror. He sees the mirror image as a "conflation" of the reflection of the king and queen
and of the reflection of the painting of the royal pair. As noted in the body of this paper,
I have great admiration for Steinberg's work, but I am afraid we are simply in disagreement
about this point. I have tried to show why it is that we are led to conclude that Las Meninas
is projected from a point in opposition to the mirror-the masterfully placed canvas that
obviates the need to show us the left wall, foreshortened in a way distinctly different from
the right; the use of spotlighting on the Infanta and the menina who offers her the bicaro;
and the "burying" of the orthogonals that prevents us from immediately determining the
point of projection. For all this, I do not believe that there is anything wrong with the
initial impression we gain from the painting, though there is something seriously wrong
with initial attempts to come to an understanding of it. When we do secure an understanding
of the perspective that Las Meninas gives us of the room, we do not and should not conclude
that there is anything wrong with the way it looks. It seems clear to me that in coming to
understand the perspective of the painting we also come to understand the sole condition
under which the mirror and the Infanta and all the other elements can appear just the
way they do in the painting; i.e., the painting can look this way solely on the condition
that it is projected from a point distinctly to the right of the mirror and the Infanta.
Steinberg is currently writing an essay on Las Meninas that maintains the ambiguity of the
painting but is considerably different in all other respects from his original essay. As a
committed (and generally convinced) reader of his work, I look forward to reading this
new essay.

19. On "Baroque illusionism" consider the following:
The unity of the Baroque is more than a formal and self-sufficient one; like a
play (and the style had close connections with spectacle) it is incomplete without its
audience. It is a mark of a Baroque work that by various means it engineers the
bodily, and hence the emotional, participation of the beholder. For painting and
sculpture to succeed in doing this at all they must first be persuasive in creating the
illusion of the actuality and truth of their subject. The Baroque representation is,
then, concerned with the reality of appearances, or at least with verisimilitude....
It creates a space in which the subject and the spectator may be joined in a specific
and sometimes dramatic moment of time. [Harold Osborne, ed., OxfordCompanion
to Art (Oxford, 1978), s.v. "Baroque" ]
I am aware that a number of critics of Las Meninas claim, or have been understood to
claim, that the painting has metaphoric or figurative content. Thus Charles de Tolnay sees
Las Meninas as concerning Velazquez's "conception of the dignity of the artist as creator,"
and Brown suggests that the painting "is, to some extent, a metaphor," since its subject is
the proclamation of the nobility of painting and its endorsement by the king (Tolnay,
"Velazquez' Las Hilanderas and Las Meninas [An Interpretation]," Gazettedes beaux-arts35
[Jan. 1949]: 32-34; Brown, Imagesand Ideas, p. 101). Perhaps these readings are figurative,
but not in the sense I am after. Surely both Tolnay and Brown are correct in seeing the
incorporation of the painter into the picture as indicating a special status for the painter
(and, perhaps, for great painters and great painting in general). But the figurative content
of this is rather slim-it concerns the relation of this painter and canvas and king and
queen to painting and nobility per se. In other words, the relations are of particulars to
generals-of this cerebral act of painting to Painting. But this is not the sort of metaphoric
argument commended by Palomino (see El museopict6rico,bk. 4), nor is it the sort of conceit
so much favored by Pedro Calder6n de la Barca or Baltasar Gracian. Moreover, this sort
of figuration works by suppressing the whole of the painting on behalf of an argument
concerning one of its parts. What I mean by "figurative value" should be clear shortly.
20. In the concluding dialogue of Baldesar Castiglione'sBookof theCourtier,the disputants
agree that the hard-won virtues and skills appropriate to an exemplary courtier are not
ends in themselves but are achieved for the purpose of educating and improving the prince.
A brief discussion follows concerning the proper designation for a courtier who instructs
the prince: the choice is between "the perfect courtier" and "the preceptor of the prince"
(see The Book of the Courtier,trans. Charles S. Singleton [New York, 1959], pp. 322-33). It
is noteworthy that in book 1, Count Ludovico da Canossa suggests (without opposing
argument) that a courtier should learn how to draw and paint. The count says:
And do not marvel if I require this accomplishment [painting], which perhaps

nowadays may seem mechanical and ill-suited to a gentleman; for I recall reading
that the ancients, especially throughout Greece, required boys of gentle birth to
learn painting in school, as a decorous and necessary thing, and admitted it to first
rank among the liberal arts....
And truly, he who does not esteem [painting] strikes me as being quite lacking
in reason; for this universal fabric which we behold, with its vast heaven so resplendent
with bright stars, with the earth at the center girdled by the seas, varied with mountains,
valleys, rivers ... can be said to be a great and noble picture painted by nature's
hand and God's; and whoever can imitate it deserves great praise....
And in this an even greater skill is needed to depict those members that are fore-
shortened and that diminish in proportion to the distance, on the principle of
perspective. [Pp. 77-78, 80]
21. My far from exhaustive research has turned up twelve such volumes to date. I
am sure there are many more.
22. Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, Idea de un principe politico cristiano, 4 vols. (1640;
Madrid, 1927-30), 1:82.

23. Ibid., 1:82-83.

24. Gracian, Agudeza y arte de ingenio, Obrascompletas,ed. Arturo del Hoyo (Madrid,
1960), p. 473.
25. Gracian, El Criticon, Obrascompletas,p. 524.
26. Ibid., p. 877.
27. I have refrained from laying out a narrative line for the painting, mostly because
I have not thought that an understanding of the action represented would be terribly
useful for an overall understanding of the painting. My interpretation of Las Meninas is
not dependent upon any particular narrative account; it depends solely on the assumption
that whatever the actions shown in the painting are supposed to represent, they are familiar
to the royal couple. As it turns out, in this course of working on this paper I have developed
a narrative that seems to provide a coherent account of the action. I want to stress again
that my interpretation of Las Meninas does not depend in any way on this narrative, nor
does it necessarily follow from my account of the painting. Jose Nieto Velazquez, aposentador
to the queen, stands at the back door. One of his officially prescribed duties is to "be in
attendance to Her Majesty ... in order to open doors as he is ordered to do" ("Etiquetas
generales de la Casa Real del Rey Nuestro Sefior para el uso y exercicio de los ofizios de
sus criados" [Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, sig. 10.666, p. 126], quoted in Brown, Images
and Ideas, p. 91). It doesn't seem likely, as Brown argues, that he would be standing at the
back door, opening it for the queen, if she and the king have just entered the room. To
the contrary, it seems more congenial to common sense that he holds the curtain back
because he has been ordered to open the door so that they might depart. Thus, we are
seeing this group in the room as the royal couple ends the sitting for their painter and
prepares to leave by walking through the room toward the open door. Perhaps they have
just stood and that is why the menina to the right of the Infanta begins to curtsy. And
perhaps we finally have an idea of why the midget, Nicolasito, is pushing the dog with his
foot. The dog has been settled for a long time while the king and queen have been sitting
for their portrait. The midget urges the dog to stand respectfully or, perhaps, just to move
out of the way.
28. In this vein, Saavedra's book (see n. 22 above) was dedicated to Prince Baltasar
Carlos, the Infanta's brother, and presented to the king and queen as a guide for his
education.
29. This problem is discussed at length in many mirror books written for the education
of the prince. In The Book of the Courtier,Castiglione solves this difficulty by means of an
analogy: the perfect courtier is not more perfect than the prince he educates; he is like a
whetstone that is used to sharpen knives but cannot cut anything itself (see p. 330). In the
dedicatory epistle to his guide for the education of the ideal prince, Saavedra states that
if he has overstepped the limits of decorum and rank in anything he has written, it is a
sign of the human passion for influence, fame, and riches, so deeply rooted in the human
character that not even fire can kill it (see Idea de un principe politico cristiano, 1:62).
30. Just before the publication deadline for this essay, Professor Larry Silver of North-
western University directed my attention to an important analysis of Las Meninas that had
escaped my attention, that is, J. A. Emmens, "Les M6nines de Velazquez: Miroir des princes
pour Phillipe IV,"Nederlands KunsthistorischJaarboek 12 (1961): 50-79. Emmens identifies
the mirror image in Las Meninas as the mirror of the prince and concludes (correctly, as
I argue) that the painting is concerned with issues of exemplarity and the education of
the princess. Although he is aware that the mirror image is open to separate and mutually
incompatible analyses (and shows an understanding of the painting's perspective and its
consequences), Emmens sees no reason to choose between the two, since "in either case,
[the painting] suggests the presence of the king and queen themselves, standing before
the scene [represented in the painting]" (p. 54). The resulting analysis of Las Meninas is
thoroughly iconographic; each of the depicted figures is assigned one or more symbolic
readings which, in turn, are carefully related to conventions drawn from painters' and
illustrators' practice. (Emmens cites, e.g., Cesare Ripa's Iconologia, Juan Perez de Moya's

Philosophiasecreta, Saavedra's book of empresas,and the iconography used by Rubens in The

Education of Maria de Medici and in his portrait of the countess of Shrewsbury.) Some of
the symbolic identifications Emmens provides seem plausible and others less so. I am of
the opinion that once the mirror is shown to have a figurative dimension, it is opened to
just this sort of analysis. But because of his preoccupation with the iconographic values of
the painting, Emmens fails to address the dialectical relation between the realistic and the
figurative aspects of the painting and fails, therefore, to address the painting as a whole.


Snyder - 1985 - Las Meninas and The Mirror of The Prince

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Las Meninas and the Mirror of the Prince

Critical Inquiry 11 (June 1985)

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motive of this understanding ought not to be dismissed, even though

Joel Snyder is associate professor of humanities and of art and design

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frustration with the literature may be misplaced. Perhaps it is more properly

FIG.I.--Diego Velazquez,LasMeninas,1656. The Prado, Madrid.

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In most of his narrative paintings, Velazquez keeps the gaze of each

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This is surely interesting and, if correct, revealing; but, again, it does

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The painter ... is staring at a point to which, even though it is

[The mirror's] upper edge is exactly on an imaginary line running

In the realm of the anecdote, this centre is symbolically sovereign,

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cussing). These three 'observing' functions come together in a point

Foucault's argument hinges, in its entirety, upon the correct description

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content. A paradox, strictly speaking, is not merely a grave oddity, some-

1. The picture is painted from the point of view of the subject,

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Searle now adds a second, deeper "level" of paradox, by proposing that

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it must therefore be true? A tautology, unlike a sentence that happens

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but it would be insolent if it permanently blocked our access to its content.

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mistake to conclude that because Velazquez had the artistic freedom to

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are led to reconsider the question of description-the question of what

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FIG. 6.-Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, empresa 2, Idea de un principe politico cristiano

Saavedra concludes this commentary by noting that the palace art

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the beholder with the painting. An understanding of the spectacle can

"There is no dish more tasteless ... than a dry desengaho ["dis-

Gracian is addressing questions of allegory here, and I do not mean to

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13. Steinberg, "Velazquez' Las Meninas," p. 46.

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19. On "Baroque illusionism" consider the following:

And do not marvel if I require this accomplishment [painting], which perhaps

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23. Ibid., 1:82-83.

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Philosophiasecreta, Saavedra's book of empresas,and the iconography used by Rubens in The