The analysis of The Torn Canvas I combines the evolutionary methodology of the study of art, with well-defined styles structured over time, initiated by Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and that of the Hamburg school of the early twentieth century initiated by Aby Warburg. The combination of both methodologies seeks to connect a work of art defined in time with a timeless symbolic system that is renewed and transformed depending on the cultural context. Starting from the analysis of Las Meninas by Velázquez, we not only analyze a courtly portrait, but through visual and symbolic vocabulary deeply rooted in the collective memory, we analyze the entire history of art from its first manifestations in the Paleolithic.