— Jean-Luc Godard, Pierrot Le Fou, 1965

"Velázquez, past the age of 50,
no longer painted specific objects.
He drifted around things
like the air, like twilight,
catching unawares in the shimmering
shadows the nuances of color
that he transformed into the invisible
core of his silent symphony.
Henceforth, he captured only
those mysterious interpenetrations
that united shape and tone
by means of a secret
but unceasing progression
that no convulsion or cataclysm
could interrupt or impede.

Space reigns supreme.
It’s as if some ethereal wave
skimming over surfaces
soaked up their visible emanations
to shape them and give them form
and then spread them
like a perfume,
like an echo of themselves,
like some imperceptible dust,
over every surrounding surface.
The world he lived in
was a sad one:
A degenerate king,
sickly infantes,
idiots, dwarfs, cripples,
clownish freaks
dressed as princes
whose job it was
to laugh at themselves
and amuse a court
that lived outside the law,
caught in a web
of etiquette, plots and lies,
bound by the confessional
and their own remorse.”