Velázquez, Painter and Courtier by Jonathan Brown is a voyage through the life of one of the great Baroque artists, Diego de Silva y Velázquez. Brown considers Velázquez life from both an artistic point of view and a biographical point of view. The purpose for Brown is to place Velázquez work "in the wider context of seventeenth century painting and theory." According to Brown, this is somewhat difficult to do because Velázquez was certainly not the normal artist for the time. Velázquez was different
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, a well-known painter during the 17th century, was born in Seville in 1599 (Brown 1). He was the eldest of the seven children, and the son of Silva and Jerónima Velazquez (Brown 1). Both of his parents claimed to be descendants of lesser nobility, a claim that Velázquez will later benefit from (Brown 1). During his time, painting was considered a craft, which is work done with hands rather than the mind, meaning it was unworthy of a nobleman (Carr 26). Velázquez