| Sumario: | "The National Gallery in London houses one of the world's greatest collections of works by the seventeenth-century painter Diego Velázquez. In this film Leah Kharibian investigates his paintings, both those in the Gallery and elsewhere, and attempts to explain this Spanish master's almost universal popularity. Velázquez was born in Seville in 1599, and studied there before being called to Madrid and the court of King Philip IV in 1623. He remained the king's court painter until he died in 1660, producing portraits of Philip's family and decorating his palaces, while also executing paintings for himself and other patrons. In 1656 he completed the picture known as The family of Philip IV (Las Meninas), which is now in the Museo Nacional del Prado. It is one of the most ambitious paintings ever made -- a vast canvas showing a group of figures in Velázquez's cavernous studio in Alcazár, the palace of the Spanish royal family in Madrid. Through this majestic work Kharibian surveys Velázquez's entire career, explaining how he came to make one of the great masterpieces of European painting"--Container.
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