Diego Velazquez: Life and Work

Diego Velazquez was one of the greatest European painters of the 17th century, a period dominated by the Baroque. Born in 1599, he was the eldest of seven children from a noble Seville family. His upbringing instilled in him the values and beliefs of his parents. The young Diego was an eager pupil whose artistic talents were recognized and encouraged early in his life. At the age of TO he was apprenticed to the painter Francisco de Herrera the Elder but changed teachers soon after to enter the workshop of Francisco Pacheco, who taught him the techniques of painting as well as the basics of anatomy, perspective, geometry and architecture. Pacheco introduced him to literature and people who were to influence his further development. In 1617 Velazquez completed his apprenticeship as a master craftsman and the following year he married Juana Pacheco, his teacher's daughter. He embraced all the major contemporary innovations in European art with enthusiasm, incorporating them into his early pictures with great self-assurance.