Juan de Parega by Diego Velazquez

There’s something about an expression in a painting that is sometimes hard to duplicate in a photograph even if the subject were to be posing purposefully. This portrait was painted by the Spanish painter Diego Velazquez of his slave Juan de Pareja. I first discovered Pareja and Velazquez through the story I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino. The story describes how Velazquez was sent to Italy to purchase paintings for the Spanish court. While he was a known and respected painter in Spain, he would not be satisfied until he was known and respected outside as well. Prior to his assignment he painted the above portrait in order to exhibit his talents. Having arrived in Rome he would go from door to door, his slave holding the portrait, showing his work. Then he would put the portrait aside so that the person viewing it could then compare it to the model. This is truth.

Juan de Pareja was an artist too, probably from having observed and worked alongside his master. But he was also a slave and was forbidden to paint, even to hold a brush. One would speculate that his master may have treated him as an equal allowing him to paint. If we had not known that this was a portrait of a slave we would see at once a portrait of a man showing dignity, strength, confidence, pride. In The Story of Painting, Sister Wendy Beckett writes that Velazquez “developed a vision of human reality that owed little to outside influences.” If that is so, then there is much to be said about this portrait.