Velázquez

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Although he was described as "a painter of likeness", Velazquez succeeded above all in being a "painter of pictures", and in this respect was the first modern artist. Jose Lopez-Rey's book abundantly illustrates how each of Velazquez' paintings contains multiple pictures, making it hard to know whether to admire the landscape, the portrait, the personage, the dog, the horse, the still-life or the costumes most of all. Velazquez said he preferred to be "first in everyday things, rather than refinements". Velazquez was described as a "precursor to impressionism". He painted according to the dictates of what he saw. Form is subservient to light and color: the brushstrokes are markers to help the onlooker reconstruct the picture mentally. These are modern concepts, which the likes of Monet or Matisse pursued all their lives. Velazquez created beauty from the ugliness of someone like Innocent X or a dwarf, or from the sublime nudity of Venus in the Mirror.