All of these results of his study Velasquez employed to render the truth of sight and to unify the impressions. For it was the sum of the impressions he had received that he learned to render. He, in fact, formed in his mind a net impression of the whole scene, then translated each part into its proper share in the total of impression. It is a process which in the case of so great an artist as Velasquez is an act of high imagination, giving birth to an act of real creativeness. The result, then, is not an imitation of nature’s truth but the new creation of an equivalent artistic truth; yet, with such an illusion of natural truth that it still meets his own ideal--“truth, not painting.” Hence the stimulus which the spectator feels in the presence of his finest works. He is urged to be an active participator; to retranslate the equivalent of truth into the natural truth; to read from the shorthand of the brush strokes the full text of the longhand; to adjust his own eyes and mind to the reception of the impression and that a unified one. He becomes, in fact, a part-creator in the picture; somewhat as an intelligent spectator of a good play finds himself a part-actor in the dramatic situations. * * * * * The story of Velasquez’s life is little else than an enumeration of incidents in his career as an artist. He was born June 6, 1599, in Seville, where his father, Juan Rodriquez de Silva, a lawyer of an old Portuguese family, had settled. The mother was Geronima Velasquez. Hence the son’s full name, Don Diego Rodriquez de Silva y Velasquez, was shortened according to Andalusian custom into the family name of his mother. His parents dedicated him to the study of letters and philosophy, but yielded to his desire to become an artist. After a short period in the studio of Francisco Herrera, he was placed under the care of Francisco Pacheco, an academic painter of no great merit, but a man of considerable learning, whose house was a resort of the most cultivated society of the city. The young Velasquez profited so well by these surroundings, that Pacheco accepted him as a son-in-law. He was married to Juana Pacheco in 1618, the result of the union being two daughters, Francisca and Ignacia, the former of whom subsequently married Velasquez’s own pupil, Juan Bautista del Mazo. At this time, the School of Andalusia, under the influence of Ribera’s pictures, was abandoning Italianate mannerisms in favor of the naturalistic motive. When the young king, Philip IV, ascended the throne in 1621, Pacheco began to scheme that his most promising pupil should be brought to the royal notice. A visit to Madrid was planned in 1622, and on this occasion Velasquez gained the notice of the Count-Duke de Olivares, the king’s prime minister and favorite, who in the following year summoned him back to Madrid. Under the Count’s direction and aided by his purse, Velasquez produced an equestrian portrait (which has disappeared) of