''The Three Musicians'' is an
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
by
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (baptized June 6, 1599August 6, 1660) was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain and Portugal, and of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of th ...
(1599-1660),
a Spanish Baroque painter considered one of the great Spanish
naturalists. It depicts three young men grouped around a dinner table playing music. It is painted in
chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achi ...
, a Baroque painting technique that made use of the contrast between light and dark shadows to achieve a sense of volume.
Painting
''The Three Musicians'' is one of Velázquez's earliest works, from his early
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
period. It is one of approximately ten paintings in the
bodegón
The term ''bodega'' in Spanish can mean "pantry", "tavern", or "wine cellar". The derivative term ''bodegón'' is an augmentative that refers to a large ''bodega'', usually in a derogatory fashion. In Spanish art, a ''bodegón'' is a still life pa ...
style that Velázquez created before 1622, while living in Seville. Its subject is similar to that of another painting, ''
The Farmers' Lunch
''The Farmers' Lunch'' (''Almuerzo de campesinos'') is one of the earliest paintings by the Spanish artist Diego Velázquez. Painted in oil on canvas in 1617, it combines a still life of food and drink with a depiction of three comic farmers, wh ...
''. In this painting three young men are grouped around a table eating, drinking and playing music, with strong contrasts of light and darkness around the figures. The light falls from the left, creating sharp shadows and intense highlights. Two men with stringed instruments are singing while the third, the youngest, has an instrument of his own under his arm and a glass of wine in his hand; he displays the glass with a mocking smile, pointing out the wine that inspires the musicians. In the background can be seen a monkey with a pear in hand. The monkey emphasizes the grotesque nature of the scene.
A loaf of bread on a napkin, a glass of wine, and a piece of cheese with a knife stuck into it give Velázquez the opportunity to study the different textures. An interesting feature of ''The Three Musicians'' is the variety of issues raised, such as whether it is a
genre representation or whether behind the supposedly everyday scene there are hidden layers of meaning, which can make the picture readable as an allegory, giving it a different interpretation.
References
Further reading
*
External links
Spanish Baroque, several works of Velasquez
{{DEFAULTSORT:Three Musicians, The
1618 paintings
Food and drink paintings
Paintings by Diego Velázquez
Paintings in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
Monkeys in art
Musical instruments in art
Seville-period paintings by Diego Velázquez
Genre paintings