MICROSTORY OF ART ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM Iconography of Sustainability

From the Gallery of Sustainability:

Velázquez and Sustainability:

(8.5.2022) The The Waterseller of Seville by Diego Velázquez is a painting to inspire thoughts on sustainability. I am not saying that it is on sustainabiliy. But it is a painting that implies much and requires a viewer, a reader ready to fill in the space that Velázquez left him to fill in. Of course art historians are, largely, neither able nor willing to do such things, but this is not our problem (one might say, this one quibble may be allowed, that they are, largely, not ›inspirable‹). But what if a painting (like here) requires someone ›to work with‹ the painting, for the painting to make sense?

But back to our painting: an encounter between youth and old age is staged here. One might even speak of three generations being depicted, but the third person in the background, which is drinking, cannot be clearly identified as representing a ›middle‹ generation. What do we see? Water is passed from old age to youth, but the boy, who appears to digest something, something that might have been said to him, a wisdom that might have been passed to him, while he is not quite ready to digest such wisdom. And the important thing is that the boy is not yet drinking, as there is still a bond between old age and youth, since two hands stick to the glass. No eye contact is being made. But we, as viewers are directly looking at the person drinking.
What has to be filled in here, is the meaning that can be given to water (as an near synonym for life perhaps), as well as the meaning of passing something of that substance from old age to youth. It is not far-fetched at all, to think that the wisdom that has just been passed to the boy is vanity, and it is not far-fetched to think that the meaning of vanity cannot be grasped by a young boy (Velázquez, by the way, was still quite young when painting all this).
For a contemporary viewer it must have been quite clear that the waterseller was close to his death, but it is him who still passes the precious substance to the next generation(s). Vanity is to be thought next to youth. And water will be passed in the future (as long as there is a future). The boy will be drinking, the boy will live, but there will always be vanity next to youth. And if something is meant to be sustainable at all – it is this chain. The passing of life from one generation to the next, the passing of wisdom perhaps (because the passing may happen without anyone being aware of it – this would mean that life is without awareness of itself).
The painting is not without awareness of itself. The painting does know that a viewer has to meditate on the meaning of water, on the meaning of confronting old age with youth and so one. The painting does appeal to the viewer to do so. And if a viewer does not, there will be looking without any understanding (which, another quibble might be allowed) is not even consuming.

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