Mars Resting

Velazquez made this around 1640 for the Torre de la Parada, a royal hunting lodge outside Madrid that Philip IV was filling with pictures of gods and heroes. What he delivered was a strange choice for a warrior king. Mars, the god of war, sits half-undressed on the edge of a rumpled bed, his helmet pushed down over his eyes and his armour dropped in a heap on the floor. He looks less like a conqueror than a tired, ageing soldier caught in a low moment, chin sunk on one hand. Spain in these years was steadily losing wars and money, and many have read this drooping god as a quiet comment on that decline. The heavy moustache under the shadow of the helmet is the detail people tend to remember.