From near at
hand it looks a smudge, but at the proper distance every stroke takes
its right place. Such freedom was the result of years of careful
painting of detail, and is not to be attained by any royal road.
Velasquez seldom seems to have made preliminary drawings, but of that
we cannot be sure. Certainly he had learned to conceive his vision
as a whole, and we may fancy at least that he drew it so upon the
canvas--altering the lines as he went--working at all the parts of
the picture at once, keeping the due relation of part to part; not
as if he finished one bit at a time, or thought of one part of a figure
as distinct from the rest. To have drawn separate studies for legs
and arms would have been foreign to his method of working.
The pictures painted in this his latest style are few, for the court
duties heaped upon him left too little time. Maria Theresa, the sister
of Don Balthazar Carlos, was engaged to be married to Louis XIV., King
of France. The marriage took place on the border of France and Spain,
and Velasquez was in charge of all the ceremonies. The Princess
travelled with a cavalcade eighteen miles long, and we can imagine
what work all the arrangements involved.
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