Diego Velàzquez, Las meninas

Diego Velàzquez's Las meninas (The maids of honor) in the Prado in Madrid is considered by many art scholars to be one of the most important paintings of the Baroque, possibly the entire Western canon. Although the painting has been the focus of extensive analysis and interpretation, no one (to our knowledge) has studied its perspective and lighting by means of computer graphics. The following is based on:

• David G. Stork and Yasuo Furuichi, "Computer graphics synthesis for inferring artist studio practice: An application to Diego Velàzquez’s Las meninas," SPIE Electronic Imaging, 2009 (pdf)
• Blake Gopnik, "The best of the west," Washington Post, December 24, 2010

Computer graphics rendering of Velàzquez's studio

One of the questions we address is whether the reflections of the king and queen in the plane mirror corresponds to the position of the viewer, or instead the large canvas depicted within the painting. We approached this question through the use of computer graphics. We built a full 3D model of the tableau, which we could "fly" around and view from many different positions as well as adjust the positions and intensities of the illuminants. In this way we could reconstruct the studio.

We tried creating a setup where the king and queen stood at the center of projection (i.e., the place where the painting is best viewed in proper perspective) and saw themselves in the plane mirror on the rear wall. We found this was not possible; this geometry simply cannot work. Instead, we confirmed the simple constructions of W. H. Janson, M. Kemp, J. Snyder, and others, that we viewers were seeing the reflection of the large depicted painting—not "ourselves." We even created a hypothetical (but otherwise hidden) portrait of the king and queen on the canvas facing away from the viewer that would be consistent with the reflection we see. A related topic is how the lighting plays on the figures, a matter which we explored by computer graphics.

Part of the reason Las meninas is so important to the history of art is that it broke from the Renaissance convention of painting as window on the world: here, the painting "looks back" at the viewer. In fact, the realization that the plane mirror reflection we see is of the canvas depicted within the painting itself, adds a complexity and a richer philosophical meditation on representation and gaze.