Better than a museum | Velazquez: The Technique of Genius

Oh Velázquez, old magician, I know your tricks !! | Velazquez: The Technique of Genius | Jonathan Brown, Carmen Garrido

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	• Velazquez: The Technique of Genius Jonathan Brown, Carmen Garrido Yale University Press, 2003 - 216 pages average customer review:based on 14 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

NOT as good as everyone says

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 the 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 - 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.

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Better than a museum

This book enables the reader to not only penetrate some of Velasquez's secrets, but also to focus on some wonderfully photographed details of his most famous paintings (brushstrokes are even distinguishable in some cases). It is almost better than a museum experience, since in museums you are usually kept at a certain distance from such precious works. To the professional artist, it undoubtedly gives valuable insights on the great master's skills and technique; to the layman like myself, it gives a unique opportunity to enter the sphere of high art.

Oh Velázquez, old magician, I know your tricks !!

A great value book, a lot of technical information, amazing photographs, detailed zooms, biographical information, methods and techniques used by the spanish painter, pigments and binders, brush expression, etc., etc....
The only complaint is that the book has not a solid construction, at the very first reads groups of pages threatened to separate from the spine

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Wonderful Insights Into Velazquez's Works

Brown and Garrido has something remarkable with this book. They provide detailed technical analyses of many of Velazquez's principal works, discussing both his use of pigments and his application of paints. Close-up photographs illustrate details that shed light on the distinguishing features of Velazquez's paintings -- the thin layers of heavily diluted pigment and the rapid, hurried brushstrokes which bring his subjects to life. The photographs are large and the text illuminating. A highly worthwhile purchase. Brown's solo work on Velazquez's career makes a wonderful accompaniment.

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Awesome close-ups!

There is no other book out there with such great close-ups of Velazquez's
work. That ALONE makes this worth the purchase for any serious artist
who admires Velazquez. I own this book and it inspires me to go into the studio all the time. The colors and possible mediums the artist used
are given in the intro, but many of the colors are no longer with us, or in different form. The author gives a scholarly assessment of how Velazquez may have worked on his paintings, and he uses X-ray radiographs and chemical composite analysis to understand exactly what Velazquez put down and when.
I mostly ignore the notes, though and focus on the dozens of astounding close-up photographs which display this great artist's loose and bold style. The author, being an art historian and not an artist, however, seems to focus on some unimportant details with the technique, but overall his notes (given painting by painting) give at least one nugget
of new information to the reader that complement the photos. Only a trip to the Prado would be more helpful than this book!

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In this volume, an art historian and a conservation scientist discuss the techniques Velazquez created in order to realize his artistic vision. Examining 30 works by Velazquez that span his entire career, the authors show how his technical achievement developed over time.

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