Week 9 Theme 1

Highlight a metaphor or some other type of figure you find there.

Las Meninas. Housed in the Museo Prado, this painting is Spain’s Mona Lisa, a painting centered on the young Infanta Margarita, but supposedly actually Velazquez’s self-portrait, a commentary on his role in the royal court. But what captivates the mind on this particular day is a thought that art critics all too often disregard: this painting is ordinary.

Ordinary not because Las Meninas lacks merit, but ordinary in the same way as the daily theme that would eventually describe it. Velazquez was a professional artist, working under the patronage of the Spanish royal family, and he produced paintings like today’s writer produces essays. It’s what he does. The ideas and symbols and themes fall together in an uncertain pile that sorts itself out as the work materializes, with the certainty that its reception will probably be decent, but with the faint hope that it is considered amazing, and with no knowledge of the meaning future generations might extract from just another paid work.

Sure, Las Meninas contains some symbols and implied meaning. And yes, it’s fun to speculate on Velazquez’s intentions, but can visitors see him carrying his pen and backpack to the royal studio every day? Naturally, exactly one visitor did, and for the rest of the day, the mind clung to a faint hope that Las Meninas was just another day’s work, like a daily theme.