Diego Velázquez and the portraits of Philip IV: Baroque painting and time’s idea in Spanish society of seventeenthcentury

Abstract

This research reflects on the possibility of analyzing the idea of time in Spain of the seventeenth century Baroque through five portraits by Spanish painter Diego Velázquez (1599- 1660). These pictures are made after the period when the painter was admitted to the court of Philip IV of Spain (1605-1665) as official painter. The visual sources selected for this research in order to allow the analysis of the idea of time are portraits of the king made by Diego Velázquez and represent the young king and subsequently aged. It is believed that the idea of time to Velázquez has close relationship with the Spanish baroque society of the seventeenth century in which it is inserted. In this sense, representations of power and the aging monarch's possible to be seen in the paintings of Velázquez contributed to the conception of time thinking about the artist and Spanish society of that period.