In a Spain dominated by a fervent religiosity, the painter Diego de Silva y Velázquez emerged as a master practitioner of a secular form of art. Velázquez's unique painting style, which combined at one time or another dramatic lighting, intense coloring and ever more loose brushstrokes, was dominated by a single preoccupation - to capture a degree of naturalism hitherto unachieved in the history of art. His work came to be admired by many in the centuries to come and as the French painter Edouard Manet remarked, "He is the painter of painters".


Old Master Velázquez
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOF2DpTDCow&feature=relmfu