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Fw: Fw: precursors (Spanish): Las Meninas
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EDCOMMENT BELOW
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Bolt" <t@tbolt.com>
> Dear List,
>
> The allusion (and not all heavy-jawed nobleman need be allusive,
> but I would agree that this one probably is) takes place as H.
> H. has once again taken up the theme of Lolita's handmaidens --
> a theme that appears a dozen times or more within the book.
>
> The cruelty of individual gratification at another's expense
> (e.g., "the youngest and the frailest of his slaves"), and its
> metaphorical relationship to kingship (usually despotic), is a
> frequent theme in Nabokov. "Comfortably robed," Humbert casts
> himself in the role of royal connoisseur, enjoying the
> "anthological delectation" that is a byproduct of having Lolita
> for a companion. If Lolita is his princess, her handmaidens
> would be the daughters of noblemen.
>
> I suggest that H. H. (or V.N.) alludes here to the most famous
> handmaidens in Western Art -- the maids of honor painted by
> Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez in 1656. The reference
> would certainly be in line with Humbert's shameless
> self-aggrandizement, and the sublime complexity of the
> composition is utterly Nabokovian.
>
> The Infanta Margarita is blond and 5 years old. But the Meninas,
> Isabel Velasco and Agustina Sarmiento, are of nymphet age, pale
> and dark. The presence of the sleeping mastiff and the dwarves
> María Barbola and Nicolas Pertusato give a hint of the cruelty
> accepted at court -- the kind of thing VN so despises in Don
> Quijote. The duenna Marcela de Ulloa looks on, the painter is
> present, WE are the apparent subject -- until we notice the King
> and Queen reflected in the mirror at the rear of the room (a
> mirror juxtaposed with a door).
>
>
> Pale Spanish child (or children):
> http://www.artchive.com/meninas.htm
> http://www.abcgallery.com/V/velazquez/velazquez48.html
>
> Heavy-jawed nobleman:
> http://www.frick.org/html/pntg39f.htm
>
>
> Pending examination of the jaws of the father of Isabel Velasco
> and Agustina Sarmiento, I rest my case.
>
>
> ~ Tom
---------------------------------------------
EDNOTE. An interesting proposal. Velazquez does not figure among the
painters mentioned in VN's oeuvre in the list compiled by Gerard de Vries
and myself. It is, of course, possible that we missed some "buried"
subtextual allusions such as Tom Bolt proposes. The only Spanish painters on
our list are Juan El Labrador and Zurbaran, both in ADA.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Bolt" <t@tbolt.com>
> Dear List,
>
> The allusion (and not all heavy-jawed nobleman need be allusive,
> but I would agree that this one probably is) takes place as H.
> H. has once again taken up the theme of Lolita's handmaidens --
> a theme that appears a dozen times or more within the book.
>
> The cruelty of individual gratification at another's expense
> (e.g., "the youngest and the frailest of his slaves"), and its
> metaphorical relationship to kingship (usually despotic), is a
> frequent theme in Nabokov. "Comfortably robed," Humbert casts
> himself in the role of royal connoisseur, enjoying the
> "anthological delectation" that is a byproduct of having Lolita
> for a companion. If Lolita is his princess, her handmaidens
> would be the daughters of noblemen.
>
> I suggest that H. H. (or V.N.) alludes here to the most famous
> handmaidens in Western Art -- the maids of honor painted by
> Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez in 1656. The reference
> would certainly be in line with Humbert's shameless
> self-aggrandizement, and the sublime complexity of the
> composition is utterly Nabokovian.
>
> The Infanta Margarita is blond and 5 years old. But the Meninas,
> Isabel Velasco and Agustina Sarmiento, are of nymphet age, pale
> and dark. The presence of the sleeping mastiff and the dwarves
> María Barbola and Nicolas Pertusato give a hint of the cruelty
> accepted at court -- the kind of thing VN so despises in Don
> Quijote. The duenna Marcela de Ulloa looks on, the painter is
> present, WE are the apparent subject -- until we notice the King
> and Queen reflected in the mirror at the rear of the room (a
> mirror juxtaposed with a door).
>
>
> Pale Spanish child (or children):
> http://www.artchive.com/meninas.htm
> http://www.abcgallery.com/V/velazquez/velazquez48.html
>
> Heavy-jawed nobleman:
> http://www.frick.org/html/pntg39f.htm
>
>
> Pending examination of the jaws of the father of Isabel Velasco
> and Agustina Sarmiento, I rest my case.
>
>
> ~ Tom
---------------------------------------------
EDNOTE. An interesting proposal. Velazquez does not figure among the
painters mentioned in VN's oeuvre in the list compiled by Gerard de Vries
and myself. It is, of course, possible that we missed some "buried"
subtextual allusions such as Tom Bolt proposes. The only Spanish painters on
our list are Juan El Labrador and Zurbaran, both in ADA.