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"Velàsquez took a selfie of the entire idea of European mastery as it clicked into place. In his masterpiece, we see the rulers discovering how to make their own project legible to themselves. This is the nature of my power, the painting says, I am the natural subject of history, the center and master of the universe" (14).

"Foucault's rhetorical strategy is to mirror the bravura of the painting in his own prose, ... Their displays of mastery articulate how power can command fealty using tools that, at first blush, appear to be simply elegant, humanistic expressions of high culture (14)."

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