Reflections in My Artistic Practice: Picasso's Appropriation and Transformation of Velazquez's "Las Meninas"
 

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In my Unit 2 Critical Reflection, I explored how my approach to variation painting was inspired by Picasso’s reinterpretation of Velázquez’s Las Meninas. During my Unit 3 studies, this curiosity deepened, prompting a visit to the Picasso Museum in Spain, which houses 58 works from Picasso’s Las Meninas series. This visit allowed me to conduct a detailed analysis of Picasso’s stylistic and structural choices in this series. Although my primary focus lies in reinterpreting Klimt’s female portraits, my painting techniques have been significantly influenced by Picasso’s work on Las Meninas.
 

Picasso’s Cubist Variations of Las Meninas

Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas, painted in 1656, is widely regarded as one of the most iconic masterpieces in art history, inspiring numerous reinterpretations by artists such as Picasso, Dalí, Hamilton, and Peter Witkin. Picasso’s variations transformed the original work through a Cubist lens, reimagining its spatial and symbolic complexities into a dynamic pictographic language that is distinctly his own.
 

French philosopher Michel Foucault’s analysis of Las Meninas in The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences highlights the paradox of representation embedded in the painting. Foucault sees the work as subverting classical theories of representation, revealing its lasting appeal to artists and theorists alike. For Velázquez, linear perspective and temporal-spatial dynamics were central to creating a unified, theatrical composition. Picasso, by contrast, expanded this into a series of works that condensed his artistic evolution, from academic training to Cubism—including its analytical, synthetic, and ornamental forms—and later Surrealism and calligraphic abstraction (Rafart i Planas, 2001).
 

Picasso’s variations not only redefined the aesthetic language of Las Meninas but also transformed its status as an artistic icon. Picasso emphasized the process of transformation, as he noted: “It is the movement of painting, the dramatic exertion from one vision to another, even if the exertion isn’t pushed to the very end… I have reached a time when the movement of my thinking interests me more than my thinking in itself.” This philosophical approach resonates with Hegelian dialectics, where ideas evolve dynamically, with the whole governing its parts. Each work in Picasso’s series is both a derivative and an integral component of a larger narrative.
 

As Picasso himself explained, “If someone were to copy Las Meninas, and if it were me, I would move the painting slightly to the left or right. Then, without worrying about Velázquez, I’d likely alter the light, or adjust everything based on the repositioning of the figures. Slowly, I would create a Las Meninas that would astonish the experts in copying old masters. It wouldn’t be what I saw when looking at Velázquez’s painting; it would be my own child” (Picasso et al., 2009). Picasso’s reimaginings are characterized by displacement, juxtaposition, deconstruction, and semi-abstraction. His Cubist interpretations boldly employ geometric shapes and vivid colors, breaking figures into irregular forms and reorganizing space to produce distinctive visual effects.

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Analysis of Representative Works in Picasso’s Las Meninas Series

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 1. The First Variation: Exploring Form and Structure  
This piece is the first variation in Picasso’s Las Meninas series and the largest in size. The color palette is limited to black, white, and gray, with this simplification drawing the viewer's focus to the essence of the composition. Picasso emphasized the distribution and rhythm of visual elements, constructing a sense of spatial depth through the interplay of light and shadow. Compared to other works in the series, this painting features a more complete and coherent composition, maintaining the strongest visual connection to Velázquez’s original.

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Picasso simplified objects and figures into geometric shapes, expanding their projections and emphasizing structural form and spatial relationships. Although this approach reduced the intricate details of the original, it created a heightened sense of dimensionality. By presenting figures from multiple perspectives—combining frontal and side views—Picasso broke away from traditional single-point perspective, challenging conventional spatial structures in painting.

The facial features in this work adopt unnatural proportions and stylized forms reminiscent of African and Iberian masks. In terms of technique, Picasso employed bold and vigorous brushstrokes to enhance the work’s dynamism and expressiveness. The variation in line thickness was used to define shapes and boundaries. Spatially, Picasso undermined traditional perspective, rendering the composition with a flat, two-dimensional quality. Overlapping and intersecting elements generate complex spatial relationships and visual depth.

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 2. Shifting Focus: The Surrounding Environment  
In this variation, Picasso shifted the emphasis from the figures to the surrounding environment. He utilized complex geometric structures to reinterpret the painter and easel from Velázquez’s original, transforming them into a fragmented and dynamic composition. The main figures in the original are reduced to simple triangular forms.

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The left side of the composition is dominated by red, white, and black triangles, creating a striking and impactful partition within the work. This triangular configuration establishes a deeper spatial layer, with the red triangle’s white edges blending into the surrounding shapes, enhancing spatial depth and drawing the viewer’s attention to the foreground.

The upper portion of the composition features large trapezoidal shapes in white and gray, which redirect the gaze back to the surface plane. In the center, Picasso assembled a dense array of horizontal geometric forms into a horizontal trapezoid, suggesting spatial direction and perspective. The vertices of these shapes become intersections between depth and flatness, further enriching the spatial complexity.

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Different shades of red are strategically placed in the lower, left, and upper-middle areas of the composition. This use of varying red tones likely serves to create visual tension and contrast with the greens in the composition, further emphasizing focal points. The tightly layered geometric shapes create a robust and compact structure, evoking the aesthetic of Cubism.

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 Picasso’s Las Meninas Series: Deconstruction and Reinvention  

Picasso’s Las Meninas series represents a bold reimagining of a canonical masterpiece. Through Cubist and abstract techniques, he deconstructed and reinterpreted Velázquez’s work with a focus on multi-perspective representation, geometric abstraction, and innovative use of color, line, and space. While honoring Velázquez, Picasso simultaneously conveyed his deep understanding of artistic essence and the creative process.

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 Influence on My Artistic Practice  
Picasso’s use of geometric forms to construct space in the Las Meninas series has deeply influenced my artistic approach. The way he employed flat geometric shapes to suggest depth, organized color contrasts to emphasize rhythm, and used multiple perspectives to abstractly summarize figures has inspired my exploration of visual structure.

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Under his influence, I have adopted techniques of decomposing and reorganizing geometric shapes in my work, creating overlapping and intersecting elements to generate layered spatial relationships and enhance visual complexity. Through the strategic placement of contrasting color blocks, I aim to guide the viewer’s gaze across the canvas, transforming traditional portraiture into abstract compositions with modern artistic characteristics.

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This method has allowed me to engage in a dynamic dialogue between tradition and modernity, using Picasso’s techniques as a foundation to reimagine the possibilities of visual representation.

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Rafart i Planas, C. (2001) Picasso’s las meninas. Barcelona: Editorial Meteora.

Picasso, P. and Cowling, E. (2009) Picasso: Challenging the past. London: National Gallery Co.