VISUAL ANALYSIS.

“The Spinners” [“Las Hilanderas”]

(1655-1660), Diego Velázquez

A seemingly genre scene painted by Velázquez sits on a canvas of over two

metres by nearly three metres. Foreground and background are clearly divided by a set

of steps and archway, as well as a stark contrast between the well-lit alcove and the dark

front room. Each of the main planes of action features five women, the ones in the

background dressed ostensibly, while the foreground presents working women – the

spinners that give name to the painting. The main compositional elements are the

rhomboid structure that contains all the action (oculus – left-most woman’s head – yarn

at the bottom-centre – head of the little girl on the right) and the line formed by the

spinners’ heads; they emphasise the scene’s horizontal division, as does the uneven

distribution of light. There is no one focal point, nowhere the eyes are prevalently drawn

to. Rather, they dart around: to the girl with the blue skirt who receives the most light in

the foreground; to the glimmering thread she is winding; to the spinning wheel, its

movement painted so dexterously it can almost be heard whirring around; to the

brightly illuminated scene at the back.

“The Spinners” was completed sometime between 1655 and 1660 for a private

commission from Pedro de Arce. As is the case with other Velázquez paintings of this

time such as “Las Meninas”, the formal properties are laced with iconographic meaning

and clues to deciphering the actual ideas the work hints at. In this case, the mystery

started being unravelled when Pedro de Arce’s inventory was discovered and a painting

called “The Fable of Arachne” [“La fábula de Aracne”], of the same dimensions as “The
Spinners”, appeared cited there. As the inventory was made roughly eight years after

the painting, it was safe to assume that “The Fable of Arachne” was indeed the original

title of what was for years known as “The Spinners”. This new title changes the

perspective on the work. It can now be identified as a historical painting, for which the

large size of the canvas rings true, as genre scenes are traditionally associated with

smaller scales1. In the 18th century the work was made even larger by adding strips of

canvas on the margins. The change is most visible on the left and at the top of the

painting, the latter serving to include the arch and oculus, which made the background

alcove seem further away than it previously did2.

Arachne’s character comes from a Greek myth. She was a weaver who made

beautiful tapestries, so admired by everyone that she became proud and boastful, going

as far as saying that her skill was superior to that of the gods. Word of this daring

statement reached the ears of Pallas Athena, goddess of crafts and weaving, and she

challenged Arachne to a contest in an attempt to teach the mortal a lesson. Athena wove

a wonderful tapestry depicting the glory and majesty of the gods, but Arachne’s, which

showed the ways in which different gods behaved immorally, was far superior in beauty

and its scenes almost seemed to come alive. Enraged, Athena turned Arachne into a

spider, condemning her to weave webs forever.

1 There are exceptions to this, such as Courbet’s massive genre paintings, but he came almost two
centuries later, and his work was very innovative in this aspect.
2 These strips were originally thought to have been added to repair the potential damage the harm

might have suffered in a fire that happened in the Royal Alcázar (where the work was kept) in
1734, but a restoration in 1980 proved that the work had not sustained any damage form the
event.
 In Velázquez’s painting the goddess Athena can be recognised as the woman

wearing a helmet whose arm is raised in the back room, because an owl (her traditional

symbol) is painted above her. Next to her stands Arachne, showcasing her woven

masterpiece. Velázquez fashioned this tapestry after Ruben’s “The Rape of Europe”

which, in turn, is an imitation of a work by Titian. Apropos of that, “The Spinners” both

starts and ends with a painting; from the surface of the oil paint on canvas to “The Rape

of Europe” delimitating the work from the back.

Diego Velázquez. "The Spinners" (1655-1660)

Three women sit in the centre of the scene, all barefoot, indicating their status as

allegorical representations. It has been hypothesised that they might be the Fates or

Moirai, who spin the thread of life and assign destinies to humans according to Greek

mythology. Each of them is seen carrying out one of the tasks included in the process of
spinning thread, correspondent with the age Velázquez has made them look. A little girl

on the right initiates the process by bringing the cotton, then carded by Atropos, the

central figure. The darkness of her face and her posture suggest decrepitude. Although

Atropos is traditionally represented cutting the thread of life, here she appears at the

beginning of the process carding the flax, a reversal that plausibly alludes to the cyclical

and mutable nature of human ageing. A young woman to her left, Lachesis, weaves the

thread onto a wooden frame. Lastly, the old woman to Atropos’ right is Clotho, spinning

the thread. At her feet sits a cat, an animal associated with Diana, goddess of the moon.

As the heads of all the women seem to form a circle around it, much like the moon’s

revolutions around the Earth, its presence contributes to the cyclical allusions. Because

she is painted footless, in what looks like a very unstable position, the woman holding

the drapes at the left of the painting is assumed to be the goddess Fortuna. It does not

seem coincidence, then, that the wheel overlaps her figure, as it is a common symbol for

luck (wheel of fortune).

As for the three women in the background who seem to be just mere observants

of the contest between Athena and Arachne, they have been identified as the three

Graces, due to the appearance of their recognizable symbols, like musical instruments

(viola) or roses (in the tapestry). The Graces are associated with beauty and art in Greek

mythology. Their characters and their position within the painting establish a dialogue

with those of the Fates. The latter, in the darker, sublunar world that is the front room,

spin away the threads of perishable lives that are immediately substituted by the next

one. In the back room, illuminated by a heavenly shaft of light, the product of a mortal’s

craft is shown next to a goddess’. The two rooms are connected by two steps, placing the
back one higher than the front. A ladder leans on the wall that separates both rooms. The

whole painting’s structure seems to be praising art, its permanence and immutability

through time, and suggesting that it is through art that human souls can aspire to ‘step

up’ into the immortal world. “This is Ovid not moralised, but philosophised.”, as

Stapleford and Potter sharply point out. (Stapleford and Potter, 1987: 176)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Stapleford, Richard, and Potter, John. “Velazquez ‘Las Hilanderas.’” Artibus Et

“Las Hilanderas o La Fábula De Aracne - Colección.” Colección - Museo Nacional del