Few artists are as well-known and admired as the Spanish painter Diego Vel zquez (1599-1660). His many portraits--the majority of them created in his role as court painter to King Philip IV of Spain--remain striking today, their beauty matched only by their remarkable psychological acuity. Vel zquez painted people not as types, but as individuals, and that approach, combined with his skill, made his work both unique and absorbing. This volume...