The Artistic Meaning of Images Within Images

Meta painting is a way painters reveal the illusion of a painting. It has been referred to as the “self-aware” image because paintings such as Velazquez’s Las Meninas [the above image] were the forerunners of modern painting.

This may be hard to wrap your head around. But modern painting didn’t just spring out of thin air. It started way back even earlier than the 16th century. Successful modern paintings frame and isolate the image as an aesthetic object, qualifying it as a product of history.

Masterful paintings in the Louvre and other prominent art galleries worldwide are doing just this — they are isolating an image, making it beautiful, and making it eligible to transcend time.

It will floor you when you see Velasquez’s Las Meninas — the actual painting — at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. I was leveled by it when I saw it in 2014. It was in a side room off the main hallway. When I approached the painting, I noticed how low it was to the floor — maybe 2 feet off the ground.

I was stunned by that since it gave me the feeling I could smudge if I leaned toward it. Also, the placement of the painting gave me a sense of vertigo — I could lose my balance.

Then, I look upward and step back to take it all in. It is a 10-foot painting of a castle room. The width is equally enormous — 9 feet long.

When you stand before it, you feel like you are stepping into an old castle where the young princess and her attendants are standing. You feel like you are stepping back into the 16th century.