Art & Critique » El Greco

El Greco: View of Toledo

elijah — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 21:57:06 +0000

I would like to pick up the idea of electricity from the previous review and see how well (very well) it fits into this landscape (hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York — and you will find an interesting thematic essay on this website). The raptured, electrified sky casts a distinct white glow on the city below. As it often occurs, the turbulent weather translates into an according inner sensation of fear and danger. The view presents an unwelcoming sight, which, however, conceals a certain charm and mystery — a fairy tale narrative quality that lures the beholder inside the vision. The composition plays an important role in this seduction: the line of the wall chalks out the ascent, where the cathedral and the royal palace appear to almost touch the stormy skies; this compositional apex promises a reward in the form of a visual feast — a lightning deeming itself an explosion, or a firework. The hole right in the middle of the cloud simultaneously channels and releases the tension.

View of Toledo, circa 159…

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The greenery in the foreground provides an antidote to the urban setting, albeit due to the dark mood it is difficult to define it as “pastoral.” Still, the artist efficiently presents the dichotomy of nature and an inhabited locality, and carries through the rich idea of wilderness both tamed and intimidating. Venturing outside the city walls seems like a daunting task, but a possible one, and, once again, a tempting one. Another recurring motif, technical this time, comes to mind: the lower parts of the painting exhibit remarkable accuracy and precision, the architecture and the wild growth being rendered realistically, whereas the upper part displays chaos and fantastical confusion. Randomly scattered blots of color defy the order below. Brush stroke grow bolder and wider; it appears that the artist uses these white patches as a palette, drawing color out of them to produce a ghastly whitish veil.

The Tempest, Gallerie Del…

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I want to suggest an interesting comparison. Giorgione’s The Tempest, (hanging in Gallerie Dell’Accademia, Venice — only in Italian) contains exactly the same set of features. There is the thundercloud and lightning, a city, and a creek below. The Venetian’s painting is still considered enigmatic, for many reasons that are not the theme of this review (Britannica full article about Giorgione).There is one thing that distinguishes it from El Greco’s piece: the man and the woman on both sides of the river. Simply by eliminating the similar features, we may arrive at the notion that either of the paintings — or both — deal with the female and male principle; with masculinity and femininity as the two opposites that charge our life with so much electricity, and which may imply countless variations on the theme of order and chaos. That El Greco studied in Venice may prove this comparison quite reasonable.

El Greco: Saint Martin and the Beggar

elijah — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:22:13 +0000

I think that (the painting hangs in the National Gallery of Art, Washington) the saturnine mood displayed by the faces seeps into the bodies, even that of the animal. The elongated, sinewy physique of the beggar appears to be melting, flowing downwards, as if unable to resist the gloomy sentimentality of the scene. The horse’s self conscious and inward gaze becomes the third angle of the imaginary triangle that connects the three pairs of eyes; its unsure, timid stamping accords with the general mood of a tense and meaningful moment. The artist employs an interesting, perhaps slightly ironic, compositional trick by placing the animal’s hind legs near the beggars elegant lower limbs (both are bony). This irony may be the only point of emotional rest in this painting, and it is not accidentally located at the lower part of the canvas, implying the hierarchy of comedy and more serious modes of psychic experience, manifested by those faces.

St. Martin and the Beggar

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Though it is obviously the physical weight and the shape of the armor that impedes the saint in his task, a broader symbolic interpretation suggests itself: the rich, secular and earthly (the ore used for making the plates literally being extracted from the ground) garments interfere with one’s progression towards holiness, as, for instance, was exemplified by St. Francis. Correspondingly, the protagonist is indeed depicted in the process of shedding his garb, cutting off a part of his robe in order to give it away to the naked beggar. The violence of the act clashes with the serene humility of the actors, generating electrifying atmosphere — the city of Toledo, depicted in the background, serves as the ground connection for this cycle, linking the two abstracts to a particular locale and providing an essential counterbalance.

View of Toledo, circa 159…

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The blue sky enframing the figures resembles very much a liquid threatening to drown everything in an engulfing cascade. It comes to mind that perhaps this is what the horse so urgently senses — animals being very in tune with upcoming changes in nature. Regardless, the cold (and to my mind somewhat repelling) hue creates a portending sense of uneasiness and unresolved tension, and even the blazing white color of the ungulate forces us to look away — or concentrate on the vision before us by overcoming emotional distress and making some sort of a spiritual achievement. In a way, this is a very personal communication of the artist’s faith, so intimate, it is difficult to continuously witness. Though it is clear what is about to happen in terms of action, the multitude of unfinished and impending things in terms of composition and palette casts an overwhelming sense of mystery and uncertainty — making this canvas a mesmerizing piece of art.

El Greco: The Burial of the Count of Orgaz

elijah — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 21:55:01 +0000

That’s a pretty odd sounding name. But let’s not hold it against the owner. Though, there is indeed something orgiastic in the happenings above the funeral, and I mean that in the strict formal sense, without any cynical attempts at blasphemy. The artistic confusion taking place in the celestial scene (the painting is located in the Church of Santo Tomé, Toledo) appears like the exact opposite of the appropriately grave conduct below: disorderly, joyfully inspiring, fantastical and fanciful to the point of being bizarre. There is great sense to such distribution of imaginative chaos and order; after all, the artist may have well witnessed analogous processions, and could have had the privilege of depicting from memory, whereas the only guide for the metaphysical scene above the physical one might have been only his fantasy. And as long as he stayed within the catholic doctrinal framework, pure invention was probably encouraged.

The Burial of Count Orgaz…

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Though I am only familiar with Spanish physiognomy from literary descriptions and television, I believe that El Greco tapped into the basic pattern of facial features of people inhabiting the peninsula. Inherently pale and dark-haired, the men depicted at the gathering look characteristically Spanish; it’s difficult to determine whether the melancholia is another intrinsic quality, or simply one emanating as the naturally resulting mood of the sombre event. The artist endows his actors with local physical peculiarities — this is a normally accepted strategy, perfected by Michelangelo, who used quarry workers as models for his sculptures and paintings. Viewers would recognize the type and connect more willingly with the image. In fact, the only obvious factor linking both scenes is the physical similarity: both saints and mortals possess resembling features.

The Burial of Count Orgaz…

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The broadness and scope of the ethereal part of the painting reminds me of Hieronymus Bosch’s large scale portrayals of heaven and hell. El Greco’s rendering similarly contains numerous independent activities that cohere harmoniously into a unified devotional vision. Bosch’s wild imagination has led him to somatic inventions, but of a kind that differed stylistically from those of the south-European: where the former preferred to transplant inanimate mechanical objects, the latter elongated the flesh of his painted subjects, making their torsos and limbs exceptionally mannerist — and beyond. I think that eventually there are two paintings on this canvas (read this Wikipedia article about the piece), and the joining is optional. The overall size (460 × 360 cm) plays the crucial dividing role: it is simply impossible to visually encompass everything, and the viewer will tend to observe the piece in line with the preordained separation.

Self Portrait, Detail fro…

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El Greco: The Holy Family (with Saint Anne)

elijah — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 22:05:44 +0000

The first thing I noticed about this painting was St. Joseph’s hand supporting the baby’s foot: Raphael’s invention in a different variation. The second was the strange looking clouds, the gape above the Virgin’s head serving as a halo. While these features differ significantly in their specificity, they may both index El Greco’s ability to convert, reinvent and subordinate ideas, for his own particular needs. The clouds, a background element, suddenly assume the utmost role of signifying sainthood, while Raphael’s gesture becomes reincarnated to involve a different actor, a man, standing behind Mary. I think that this is an essential quality of the artist, as it reveals broad intellectual capacity — something that I found convenient to write off as secondary to El Greco’s dominant emotionalism. It seems that after all the head and the heart are together in this ploy, without any preferences.

Holy Family, Madonna Feed…

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The third thing was the gradation of skin tones. Every face has its own distinctive shade; together they create a coordinated rhythm of color, further underlined by similar distribution of hue intensity of the robes. The darker the face, the darker the garment. Perhaps the purpose of the gradation was to suggest an hierarchy between the saints on the canvas. There is another interesting feature: the eyes are all blackened, as if masked in deep shadow. This choice of palette contributes to the sense of mystery, as we stand unable to decipher the innermost feelings of the saints from their eyes. In fact, pockets of black scattered throughout the image secretly impose an atmosphere of tension, enigma and vagueness. The colder blue and white of the sky balance it only to some degree, as the violent opposition of reds and yellows with the black sets the principal tone.

Holy Family with Saint Anne

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The composition also offers a series of clashes. There are several imaginary perpendicular angles (the fourth thing): between the head of St. Joseph and the baby’s body, between his arm and his foot, St. Anne’s head and the baby, the latter and Madonna’s breast, his miniature hand and her long, scissor-like fingers (intersecting only slightly off the center of the piece). Mary’s head, in another characteristically Raphaelian tilt, becomes the central axis of the configuration; in a superb harmony of design, the compositional device unites with the notional Christian concept. Despite the general two dimensional setting, foreshortened faces add just the amount of perspective and depth needed for the beholder to perceive the image relatively easily. Still the, the setting is evidently abstract and forces the viewer to higher realms of imagination and fancy. That was the fifth, though probably not the last, thing I noticed about this painting.

Holy Family with Saint Anne

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Holy Family with Saint Anne

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El Greco: The Disrobing of Christ (El Espolio)

elijah — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 20:12:42 +0000

I am already used to the imposing sense of helplessness reemerging whenever I try to think up accolades for the masterpieces discussed on this website.The visual and technical grandeur of this painting (hanging in Toledo Cathedral, a magnificent Gothic monument — click here to see more explained photographs of Toledo Cathedral), described in numerous essays and books on El Greco (britannica full article), overwhelms, while the texts deal the final blow of futility. Blah…blah…blah. Let’s pretend I haven’t written anything yet and start afresh. The shocking red of the protagonist’s garment immediately forces the mood; color dominates the image unconditionally, with facial expressions following far behind, supplementing the psychological tension, and composition serving only a rudimentary purpose, as to not to interfere with the red solo. The latter’s explosive power is disproportionate to that of composition, marking palette as outright exotic and grotesque.

The Disrobing of Christ, …

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But that is not to say that composition is somehow ineffective. On the contrary, it interweaves harmoniously with the main concept of color, as a sort of adornment, or mounting (the rest literally encircle Christ) — and some may find such role designation difficult to comprehend (one interesting example would be the inquisition, which even jailed the artist for putting Christ in the center, instead of high above his tormentors). The effectiveness of the composition in this case equals a reduction of sorts. It is known that color appeals to the psychic perception, whereas composition and arrangement addresses the intellectual core. Perhaps the latter is irrelevant here: the central role of palette suggests that emotional response is more adequate than any mental processing. El Greco’s preference of unblended hues also indicates his aiming at the most primal emotions.

The Disrobing of Christ, 1577-1579

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Facial expressions, particularly that of Christ himself, complements the tragic atmosphere. His countenance is unusually serene in the midst of a bustle, the white complexion already radiating the divine light of sainthood — either of inner or outer source. The haughty, mocking physiognomy of the guard wearing the green robe, transported here along with some other biblical contemporaries, in the painterly tradition of combining the historical with the modern, is a direct opposite. Shadow covers his face, implying on the darkness of the force that moves him. The foreshortened worker in the yellow, below, appears fully engrossed in his morbid task, while the two females (the two Marys?) in the lower left part observe in apprehension. Finally, the armored man to Christ’s right, gazing in melancholia at the viewer, and the two nearly mad offenders behind them describe the emotional scope of the picture from one end to another.

Art & Critique » El Greco

El Greco: View of Toledo

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El Greco: Saint Martin and the Beggar

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El Greco: The Burial of the Count of Orgaz

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El Greco: The Holy Family (with Saint Anne)

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El Greco: The Disrobing of Christ (El Espolio)

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