Kings, Buffoons and Philosophers in Diego Velazquez’s Paintings: Russian Perspective

Abstract

The author analyses the philosophic and anthropological notions embodied in the works of the great Spanish artist Diego Velázquez. In the author’s opinion, not only written texts have an underlying philosophy of their own, but creations of visual arts just as well. They, therefore, can be a subject to philosophical analysis. It certainly does not mean that they may be literally translated into a verbal text, but that they have a meaning and a message of their own, closely linked in their own way to their historical background, the spirit of the epoch in which they were created. That is what makes them topical for modern thinkers and explorers of visual arts. The author pays special attention to such subjects, constantly present in Velazquez’s works, as «The Mirror» theme, the correlation between the rational and the emotional side of human nature and, consequently, the essence of certain «anthropological constants» and, finally, the problem of human being as bearer of moral values.