“IN PROIEZIONE”: SPAZIO E IMMAGINE IN <em>LAS MENINAS</em> DI DIEGO VELÁZQUEZ

Abstract

This study focuses on the spatial analysis of Las Meninas, the worldwide well-known pictorial art masterpiece by Diego Velázquez. Aesthetics, form, and symbolism, are here interlinked with a geometric pattern dependent on the exact location of the designated viewpoint, which severely obeys to the projective rules of linear perspective, where, as a gem in the gem, even the image of a mirror appears, to masterly highlight the final moral of the story, surprisingly explicated by the appeal to reflection. Sophisticated geometry feature and sublime graphic execution work together in this painting to establish the role of pictorial art as a creative besides imitative activity, representing painting itself in the very act of setting a pictorial reality, all this at the height of the so-called Golden Age of the Spanish art.