Wikipedia gives the following description:
Imo, none of this is interesting or elucidating. A famous person ? Okay. Their servants ? So what ? Their dog ? Woop-dee-doo. A cameo by the artist himself ? How cheeky. The art itself ? Meh.The painting is believed by F. J. Sánchez Cantón to depict a room in the Royal Alcazar of Madrid during the reign of King Philip IV of Spain, and presents several figures, most identifiable from the Spanish court, captured in a particular moment as if in a snapshot. Some of the figures look out of the canvas towards the viewer, while others interact among themselves. The five-year-old Infanta Margaret Theresa is surrounded by her entourage of maids of honour, chaperone, bodyguard, two dwarfs and a dog. Just behind them, Velázquez portrays himself working at a large canvas. Velázquez looks outwards, beyond the pictorial space to where a viewer of the painting would stand. In the background there is a mirror that reflects the upper bodies of the king and queen. They appear to be placed outside the picture space in a position similar to that of the viewer, although some scholars have speculated that their image is a reflection from the painting Velázquez is shown working on.
The best explanation that I can come up with is that it shows a very important person (a spanish princess) of the time (1656). However, it is no longer 1656, but 2023. The spanish empire no longer exists, nor is Spain even a great power, nor does its monarchy even personally lead the country. Thus, to me, the painting seems like a ruined sphinx: a relic of an empire that no longer exists. But note that this is /not/ what painting itself is trying to communicate ! The painting itself did not anticipate Spain's loss of grandeur ! It's not trying to communicate what "Bonaparte Before the Sphinx" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bona ... 3%B4me.jpg ) communicates, but only unintentionally does so now (to me, at least).
If Spain (led by its monarchy) was still a world power, I could perhaps interpret and appreciate the painting similar to the way one interprets this photograph of senior American army commanders of WW2 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amer ... _1945.JPEG , but that seems inappropriate in 2023.
Is my analysis correct ? Am I missing something obvious ? Am I right in thinking that art connoisseurs are just group-thinking sheep that'll fawn over a painting the same way that paparazzi fawn over Paris Hilton ? (For those that don't know, Paris Hilton is a talentless unaccomplished American woman who nevertheless has immense inherited wealth and media attention, and has been called "famous for being famous".)
