Lunch Time

Luncheon, or The Lunch, a 1617 piece by Spanish artist Diego Velazquez, is displayed in the State Hermitage Museum in the Spanish Skylight Hall. Velazquez was only 18 years old when he created this, and he would go on to become a leading artist in the Spanish Golden Age of art and literature. The painting shows a simple lunch of what appears to be two pomegranates, a pie, and some wine being shared between three men representing three distinct ages in life. The youngest, the boy in the middle, is cheerful, while the young man on the right exhibits a little more restraint, showing his good nature with a thumbs up to the audience. These two both look directly at the audience with smiles on their faces, while the old man ignores us and shows little emotion. 

Luncheon exhibits Velazquez's tenebrist style of violently contrasting light and dark, with the white of the table and the men's collars standing out on an almost-black background. His attention to detail brings forth miniscule creases in the table's cloth, the clothes, and their faces, while the bread and knife appear to stick out from the canvas. Looking at the painting evokes a sense of nostalgia for a simple, rustic lifestyle like the depicted common folk have. Luncheon is quite similar to a 1618 painting also by Velazquez titled The Farmers' Lunch.