Image: University Museum and Art Gallery, University of Hong Kong
It will examine why the paintings are exceptional and argue that, far from being aberrations, they fit coherently within Velázquez’s oeuvre.
During Velázquez’s first trip to Italy, in 1629–30, he lived for a time at the Villa Medici, where he painted two unprecedented small garden views. The works therefore belong to a specific period in the artist’s career: his first journey to Italy and his time at the Villa Medici, the setting in which the two views were made.
The two garden views appear to have been painted en plein air, although the evidence presents that attribution as seeming rather than confirmed. They are described as unusual both within Velázquez’s body of work and within the broader history of European landscape painting.
The paper also examines Velázquez’s relationship with the natural world, alongside the exceptional character of the two paintings and their place within his oeuvre. Moyun Zhou, a curatorial associate at the University Museum and Art Gallery, HKU, will serve as discussant.
