At every stroke of his brush Velazquez broke new ground, whether painting the king, the court, Christ or the kitchen. Working almost exclusively for Philip IV of Spain, we’ll see how Velazquez placed illusion at the heart of all his creations and with them revolutionised the art of the Spanish court. Much of this talk will be spent on one of the most puzzled-over works in the Western canon of art history: Las Meninas. As we carefully unpick it, this cryptic painting will reveal a tapestry of ground-breaking optics, artistic bravura and intricate narratives that get to the heart of Velazquez’s creative ethos.