Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Las Meninas

Las Meninas

Original - Las Meninas (Spanish for The Maids of Honour) is a 1656 painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age, in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The work's complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and creates an uncertain relationship between the viewer and the figures depicted. Because of these complexities, Las Meninas has been one of the most widely analysed works in Western painting.

Flaw: Rectangles in image do not line up with jpeg frame. Badly distorted canvas?

Reason

High-quality reproduction of iconic artwork

Articles this image appears in

Las Meninas (via imagemap template, so it's not shown in file links), Western painting, Baroque painting, Diego Velázquez, Museo del Prado, Spanish art, several more

Creator

Diego Velázquez

• Support as nominator --Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:56, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Famous painting; one of the images we really ought to feature. Durova^Charge! 00:07, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support Meant to support earlier. From my initial look, the photograph seems ok but the painting itself seemed not in very good shape, but there's not much we can do about that. Fletcher (talk) 12:15, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
• Question Does this need a slight CW rotation? The ceiling and picture frames on the rear wall are tilted. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 12:16, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not sure. This comes direct from the Prado, and one would think they know what they're doing. Looking at the other versions of this on the commons, this is probably in the middle in terms of rotation (some are slightly clockwise of this, some are slightly counterclockwise). Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:18, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

• Is there a line that catches your eye as out of place, PLW? At far left that's a canvas on an easel, so of course it would be tilted. The rest seems fine, unless you've spotted something I haven't? Durova^Charge! 16:59, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

• You're right, Durova, I apologise for my mistake. "The ceiling and picture frames on the rear wall" should of course have read "easel". It's the same thing, after all, and "easel" is a much more professional way to say "ceiling and picture frames on the rear wall". Unfortunately, wiktionary doesn't have a reverse look-up. Which brings me back to my other fault, that I make very exact statements when they aren't really required, so I use technical phrases like "reverse look-up" and "ceiling and picture frames on the rear wall". At yet other times, I can be overly sarcastic. I'll work on it, I promise! Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 21:10, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

• The gallery below demonstrates the effect of rotating the image so that the left edge of a background picture frame is vertical: doors, door frames, and floor boards end up slanted. Three factors might account for this: the canvas might have might have gotten slightly loose over three and a half centuries, the original artwork might have been a couple of tenths of a degree off, or else Diego Velázquez accurately depicted a frame in the background that was hanging incorrectly on the wall. Durova^Charge! 15:30, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

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• Comment: What's up with the vertical lines all over it? And the speckles? Surely this could benefit massively from some attention from one of our restorers? J Milburn (talk) 20:55, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
  • That's a natural effect of how oil paintings age over time. With internationally famous artwork a conservative approach is worthwhile. Durova^Charge! 21:44, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
• Support: Definitely. Maedin\^talk 20:05, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Promoted Image:Las Meninas 01.jpg --Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 08:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)