Nevertheless he did many canvases like The Tapestry
Weavers and The Surrender at Breda, which attest his remarkable genius
in that field; and even in landscape, in _genre_, in animal painting,
he was a very superior man. In fact Velasquez is one of the few great
painters in European history for whom there is nothing but praise. He
was the full-rounded complete painter, intensely individual and
self-assertive, and yet in his art recording in a broad way the
Spanish type and life. He was the climax of Spanish painting, and
after him there was a rather swift decline, as had been the case in
the Italian schools.
Mazo (1610?-1667), pupil and son-in-law of Velasquez, was one of his
most facile imitators, and Carreno de Miranda (1614-1685) was
influenced by Velasquez, and for a time his assistant. The Castilian
school may be said to have closed with these late men and with Claudio
Coello (1635?-1693), a painter with a style founded on Titian and
Rubens, whose best work was of extraordinary power.
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