The royal couple seem to be not only physically present before Velázquez, but to stand on this side of the painting with us, the viewers. And where, we might ask, stands the artist, if he is studying his own visage too in reflection? The towering, unseen canvas at left, its ragged border edged with palpable strokes of paint, draws us further into his elaborate visual conundrum. It may hold a life-size portrait of the Infanta, or perhaps "Las Meninas" itself—an ingenious conceit that would make the real painting a metaphoric mirror of its own creation—or, more likely, depict the king and queen who have assumed a formal portrait stance beneath a florid red drapery. Yet if they are posing in the studio, why is their presence only beginning to be acknowledged? The arrested glance of the Infanta (Picasso would find it tantalizing), whose head turns left even as she, like the chamberlain, looks back, suggests that they have just arrived. That realization seems to have a ripple-like effect on her companions across the room. Their captured, candid postures and growing awareness of Philip and Marianna stand in marked contrast to the monarchs' static stares, or to the searching scrutiny of the painter. No mere, teasing narrative, "Las Meninas" encapsulates in magnificent form the power, and art, of painting itself.
