Velazquez: The Technique of Genius [Hardcover]

Professor Jonathan Brown (Author), Carmen Garrido (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300072937 | ISBN-13: 978-0300072938 | Publication Date: December 11, 1998 | Edition: 1

Great painters are invariably great technicians. In creating the techniques he needed to express his ideas, Velazquez became one of the most original practitioners of the art of painting ever known. In this richly illustrated book, two widely recognised specialists on Velazquez -- one an art historian, the other a conservation scientist -- combine their expertise to show exactly how Spain's most famous painter realised his artistic vision. More than two hundred photographs of details of Velazquez's paintings vividly demonstrate how the artist realised his vision of man and nature through a highly allusive, economical manner of painting.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A ravishingly beautiful, highly informative book. Brown and Garrido work well together, interweaving the artistic/historical background with the messy forensic facts effortlessly; the detail is stunning."

From the Back Cover

"Vel‡zquez: The Technique of Genius is an illuminating introduction to what can be learnt from the surface of the pictures. . . . It is built round illustrations of details, nearly all from paintings in the Prado."-Peter Campbell, London Review of Books; "A ravishingly beautiful, highly informative book. Brown and Garrido work well together, interweaving the artistic/historical background with the messy forensic facts effortlessly; the detail is stunning."-George Crisp, Art Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1 edition (December 11, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300072937
• ISBN-13: 978-0300072938
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 9.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,293,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ingenius rendering of face and body expressions!, July 17, 2001

By 

The Artist "The Artist" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Velazquez: The Technique of Genius (Hardcover)

The book consists in essence of two parts: The first 20 pages cover briefly Velazquez's life, career, techniques, and materials. The rest of the book comments on the artist's works.

Concisely, the author discusses the artist's choice on (painting) supports, pigments and colors, and composition and execution, as a prelude for in-depth discussions of the artist's works that follow.

Common art appreciaters will enjoy beautiful paintings (of in general not-very-beautiful people) in which face expressions and body language are deploited ingeniusly by the artist to convey drunkeness, retardation, sovereignty, self-importance, etc...

As for readers who are artists, an in-depth discussion on each painting reveals (with the aid of radiograph) techniques and procedures Velazquez used to create his work. In essence, a majority of Velazquez paintings were prepared with a layer of flake white as foundation. Over the underpainting, the artist applied pigments of different homogeneity and thickness to render desired effects. In addition, close-up pictures of painting details allow readers to understand better the secrets of creating luminosity in the paintings of this painter.

Perhaps as interesting is that mistakes and corrections made by Velazquez in his masterpieces are also unveiled, indicating the fact that although ingenius, the artist did have certain "imperfections" in his art maneuver.

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars important, interesting topic - mediocre results, April 23, 2004

By 

Greg Munger - See all my reviews

This review is from: Velazquez: The Technique of Genius (Paperback)

I think the first reviewer has mentioned the important points, but I would highlight some of the conclusions.

The purpose of this book is to apply the tools of art history and conservation to the practical question of how Velasquez painted his masterpieces. This is a topic of primary interest to practicing painters, and it is an approach that may prove fruitful in the future, but I think is only moderately successful here.

The important contribution of this book is the large number of close up views of a small number of paintings. The image quality is good, though not of the highest quality.

The text and analysis does address the practical question of how the paintings were constructed, but only provides rather shallow results. The ground used, the pigment selection, additions to the canvas - these topics are well covered. But the more involved question of how the paint layers were developed was not really explained. In the end there is little information for someone seeking to understand precisely how these paintings were made.

As the first reviewer mentioned, the art historical background has a sort of "rah rah" quality. For example, referring to The Fable of Arachne: "The expressive potential of color posited in the works of Titian is here [by Velasquez] exploited in ways that this venerated old master could never have conceived."

How many stars should you give to the only book on this very important topic? If you are a painter you have to buy it. I give it three stars, and will keep the book for the illustrations.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars NOT as good as everyone says, September 22, 2008

By 

Old Holland (Toronto) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Velazquez: The Technique of Genius (Paperback)

The previous review by Greg Munger is pretty much right on. Although there's tons of information in regards to the pigments, binders, radiographs etc., for each painting, there is very little significant insight into Velazquez's technique that would be of any real interest (or help) to someone trying to emulate his style.

All this could have been forgiven if not for the inconsistent and sometimes Horrendous image quality of the paintings - in particular the closeups - a fact that no one else seems to have picked up on. In "The Forge of Vulcan", you will see that the colors of the same painting are significantly different in each and every closeup. While in another, "Feast of Bacchus", the detail photo of Bacchus' face is totally overexposed. There are even some blurry photos which were inexplicably never taken out of the book (having a competent photographer for this book would have made all the difference). I was also disappointed to find that two of my favorite Velazquez paintings, "Innocent X" and "Juan de Pareja" - two of the finest portraits ever done - were not in this volume. Kind of a bummer since this is my only book on the painter.

I guess this book isn't THAT bad - just not as good as the other reviews would have you believe. In all honestly, I read this book right after reading Ernst van de Wetering's excellent 'Rembrandt: Painter at work' and I was hoping for more of the same. If not for the poor quality of some of the closeups I might have given it another star, as it is I'm still on the lookout for a good book on Velazquez.