Las Meninas: Abandoning the subject in favor of the periphery

In the opening chapter of The Order of Things, Michel Foucault provides an analysis of Velasquez’s painting “Las Meninas” and makes an interesting point regarding the subject versus everything else in the composition. In discussing the reflection in the mirror of the king and queen that can be seen in the rear of the room, Foucault suggests that even though the two monarchs capture the attention of the figures in the painting, the viewers outside the painting see the king and queen as insignificant. On page 14, Foucault writes, “Of all these figures represented before us, they are also the most ignored, since no one is paying the slightest attention to that reflection which has slipped into the room behind them all, silently occupying its unsuspected space; in so far as they are visible, they are the frailest and the most distant form of all reality.” Foucault here is referring to the reflection of the monarchs in the mirror that the viewer outside the painting sees, but that the individuals in the painting ignore. The omniscient viewers who witness but are not part of the scene can be seen as more objective, credible observers, and since we take little regard for the king and queen (we see only their stagnant reflection) perhaps the reality of the situation is indeed that the monarchs are less significant than the depicted spectators. If this interpretation is correct, it would conform to the idea of things that are “beside the point” having as much substance as the point itself. The painter and the whole crowd of observers are gathered for the purpose of seeing the king and queen, but it may just be that these spectators carry the greatest importance.

Foucault is possibly interpreting that Velasquez intended for the reflection of the monarchs to be some sort of statement regarding the relation of the center (the monarchs) to the periphery (everyone else in the painting). It would seem that because the periphery is actually the main subject of the painting, Velasquez was asserting that the fringe components are more important than the apparent central purpose. Was this some sort of disguised political or social statement? I tend to think that the ramifications of Velasquez’s portrayal of the monarchs in the mirror are of a broader nature. Perhaps he meant to apply the concept of the periphery and the center to a general system of thinking about the world. In the present day, we sometimes forsake the peripheral detail for the central purpose. Too often we are concerned with what “the point” is, instead of paying attention to everything else that is unique about a composition, idea, or structure. As we have found with the work of Henrik Ibsen, and now with Velasquez, it is the little things that often carry the greatest significance. Perhaps Foucault saw this neglect of the periphery in the modern paradigm of logic, and thus wished to portray an example of Classical Age thought where what was “beside the point” was the central purpose. Regardless of Foucault’s intent for including a discussion of “Las Meninas,” he does well to present the concept of looking past the subject and into the realm of the periphery.