GRECO, El

The instigator of this painting, representing a boy pursing his fleshy lips to blow on the ember in order to light the black wick of a candle, of which the wax is already melting on account of the heat, may have been Fulvio Orsini, the librarian of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in whose palace El Greco resided between 1570 and 1572. The title ‘Sopl�n’ (Blower) was given in Jorge Manuel’s inventory.

The subject of a boy blowing on an ember appears frequently as a subsidiary element in subject pictures in mid-sixteenth-century Venetian painting.

This is probably the earliest extant portrait which El Greco painted in Toledo. The treatment, with the greater continuity of brushstroke, is related to that of his portrait of Vincenzo Anastagi of his last years in Italy, and to his first paintings in Spain. In the manner of Titian, the lynx fur is freely and vigorously painted. The dark tafts have been cleverly arranged so that they seem to splay out from the sitter, thereby enhancing and vivifying her. The identity of the sitter is not known, but clearly the portrait is too informal and intimate for a sitter of royal or aristocratic blood. The fact that El Greco painted very few female portraits, the intimate quality of the portrait, the apparent age of the sitter, and the correspondence in time with the setting up of the household, lead some critics to the conclusion that this is a portrait of Jer�nima de las Cuevas, his life-long companion in Spain, and the mother of his son, Jorge Manuel. Since evidence for Jer�nima’s appearance is completely lacking there have been more reasoned proposals on the basis of comparison with other portraits. However, these identifications present problems of their own.

Regarding the authorship of the painting, several other attributions have been put forward. It has been proposed as a work of Tintoretto, of an artist in the circle of the court painter Alonso S�nchez Coello, and most recently, of the Cremonese portrait painter Sofonisba Anguissola. None of these is any more convincing, however, than the traditional attribution.

C�zanne’s copy of the painting (1879-80; Pellerin collection, Paris) heralded the ultimate recognition of the artist.

The identity of the sitter was only established in 1988, despite the fact that the portrait must record a prominent figure. He was identified with Francisco de Pisa (c. 1537-1616), Professor of Holy Scripture at Toledo University, the author of a major history of Toledo and a prominent figure in ecclesiastical affairs in the city. The identification rests on the striking resemblance between his features and those of a documented miniature of Francisco de Pisa in a private collection, that was, at one time, ascribed to El Greco himself.

The open book displayed on the table is identified by lettering on its pages as BOSIUS CANONICI, presumably an edition or commentary on the corpus of canon law. The author of the text is probably Francesco Bossi or Bosio (¹⁵⁰⁰⁄₁₀-1584), who specialized in law. In Rome Bossi was closely associated with Carlo Borromeo, one of the key figures of the Catholic reform.

There are two surviving landscapes by El Greco: The View of Toledo (Metropolitan Museum, New York) and the View and Plan of Toledo (Museo de El Greco, Toledo). They respond to very different objectives: one setting out to document the city in cartographic terms, the other evoking it through a selective arrangement of its most characteristic features. The Metropolitan painting belongs to a tradition of emblematic city views, its approach is interpretative rather than documentary: it seeks to portray the essence of the city rather than to record its actual appearance.

Both in here and in the View and Plan the city is shown from the north, except that El Greco has included only the easternmost portion, above the Tagus river. This partial view would have excluded the cathedral, which he therefore imaginatively moved to the left of the dominant Alc�zar or royal palace. The fact that an identical view appears in the Saint Joseph and the Christ Child in the Capilla de San Jos� suggests that the painting was conceived in connection with the San Jos� commission (1597-99). From that time, the town features in many of his paintings: in the Laoco�n (National Gallery of Art, Washington), the Christ in Agony on the Cross (Cincinnati Art Museum), the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception (Museo de Santa Cruz), in all of which it takes on an apocalyptical character appropriate to the themes. In his late Saint John the Baptist (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco) the landscape of the Escorial is appropriately introduced.

This is one of the earliest independent landscapes in Western art and one of the most dramatic and individual landscapes ever painted. It is not just a ‘View of Toledo’, although the topographical details are correct; neither is it ‘Toledo at night’ or ‘Toledo in a storm’, other titles which have been attached to the painting: it is simply ‘Toledo’, but Toledo given a universal meaning - a spiritual portrait of the town. In introducing the view into his paintings he acknowledges how much his art owed to the inspiration of the town, until a few years before the great Imperial Capital and still the great ecclesiastical and cultural centre of Spain - the town isolated on the plain of Castile which he had made his new home, so far from the island of his birth.

El Greco’s view of the eastern section of Toledo shows landscape formations and buildings rising in exaggerated steepness and dominated by the Alcazar, the royal palace. The bell tower of the cathedral, which should actually lie to the far right, indeed outside the picture field, has been shifted to the left by El Greco.

The painting represents more than a record of the look of the place, possesses a mood that far transcends the merely atmospheric, and, like most universal landscapes, is very probably suffused with symbolic aspects.

The two paintings in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in Rome (Adoration of the Shepherds, Baptism of Christ) were considered workshop pieces or autograph replicas of two of the three pictures that El Greco executed for the Colegio di Doña Mar�a de Arag�n in Madrid (now dispersed and housed in the Muzeul de Arta, Bucharest and the Museo del Prado, Madrid). However, a recent radiographic analysis (1997) has proven that they are original oil sketches by the hand of El Greco himself. The presence of pentimenti, compositional emendations beneath the paint surface, reveals the creative process of the artist and leads to the conclusion that these are not copies but preparatory bozzetti for the Madrid cycle. The important commission, probably designed as a triptych to decorate the high altar of the chapel, was given to El Greco in 1596: work continued until the Holy Year of 1600. The third oil sketch, depicting the Annunciation, is preserved at the museum in Bilbao.

The silvery light, the coloristic range based on cold tones, the quick, almost impressionistic brushwork and the use of strong contrasts of light and shadow in this picture are all typical characteristics of El Greco’s Spanish manner (1576-1614).

Probably originally on the left of the retable of the Colegio de Doña Maria, and painted following the Annunciation. A small version, possibly the model for the large painting, is in the Galleria Corsini, Rome. The scrolls borne by the angels bear the inscription in Latin: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men (Luke II, I4); another popular subject in El Greco’s repertoire, painted throughout his life. It was one of the subjects of the Modena Triptych, and of his first commission in Spain, that for the church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo, and was the subject chosen for his own burial chapel in Santo Domingo.

A comparison with the earlier painting of the same subject in Santo Domingo shows the advance made in the process of developing a style appropriate to the expression of the supernatural. There is no reference to the ordinary conception of space of this world, there are no allusions to the corporal quality of the figures, whose gestures also belong to the realm of imagination and not to that of ordinary experience. Light is the important dematerialising and expressive element in this painting. The Santo Domingo painting can still be related to a human event.

The detail shows the lower part of the painting which was probably on the left of the retable of the Colegio de Doña Maria.

Standing on a plinth to either side of a tabernacle containing two tablets with inscriptions are St Benedict (left) and St Romuald (right). In the sixth century St benedict drew up the rule that became the basis of Western monasticism: it is presumably the Benedictine rule in the book he holds. St Romuald (c. 950-1027) was the founder of the austere Camaldolese order - and offshoot of the Benedictines - so called from the monastery he established at Camaldoli, a mountainous place near Arezzo in Italy, of which he holds a model in his hand.

In the painting the ideal monastic settlement is depicted: we see individual hermitages or cells, each with their own garden, built around a central chapel with a common building and fountain near the entrance gate. The community, sited on a mountainous plateau, is enclosed by a dense forest.

On 9 November 1597, El Greco signed a contract to execute a series of paintings for the newly built Capilla de San Jose (Chapel of Saint Joseph), Toledo. The contract specified that El Greco was to paint the altarpieces himself and design and gild the frames. The centrepiece of the decorative scheme was to be a painting of Saint Joseph and the Infant Christ with The Coronation of the Virgin above it. These two paintings, set in an altarpiece in a Palladian style designed by El Greco, though its surroundings were altered by Baroque additions around 1665, are still in situ; recent cleaning has revealed their masterly quality. In addition, El Greco was commissioned to paint two side altarpieces, Saint Martin and the Beggar hung on the left-hand side of the main altar, while The Virgin and Child with Saints Martina and Agnes was placed directly opposite, on the right-hand side of the altar, where they remained until they were sold in 1906 to the American collector Peter A. B. Widener, from his estate they entered the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1942.

The chapel was consecrated on 24 December 1594. At a later date, two sarcophagi were placed on either side of the main altar. Possibly designed by El Greco or his son Jorge Manuel, they are similar in design to the ark and the obelisk with a ball on top that appear in the background of El Greco’s late Purification of the Temple from San Gin�s. Mart�n Ram�rez was buried to the left of the altar while Diego Ort�z and his wife were placed to the right, in each case with a plaque above stating that they were co-founders of the chapel. The two sculptures of David and Salomon, situated on either side of the main altar was possibly also designed by El Greco.

The central figure is closely based on El Greco’s earlier painting of a Boy Blowing on an Ember in Naples but the scene has been enlarged to include another male figure, wearing a yellow jacket and red cap, and a chained monkey, who emerges from the darkness on the left to look over the boy’s shoulder. The composition, known in two other autograph versions (one of similar size in Edinburgh from around 1590, and another smaller and later in the Prado from around 1600), has usually been interpreted as an allegory with some sort of moralising intent; it is unlikely that it was conceived simply as a genre scene. It bears the traditional title ‘F�bula’, meaning fable or story.

The central figure is closely based on El Greco’s earlier painting of a Boy Blowing on an Ember in Naples but the scene has been enlarged to include another male figure, wearing a yellow jacket and red cap, and a, who emerges from the darkness on the left to look over the boy’s shoulder. The composition, known in two other autograph versions (one earlier of similar size in private collection from around 1578, and another smaller and later in the Prado from around 1600), has usually been interpreted as an allegory with some sort of moralising intent; it is unlikely that it was conceived simply as a genre scene. It bears the traditional title ‘F�bula’, meaning fable or story.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 9 minutes):

Vivaldi: Sonata in D minor RV 62 op. 1 No. 12 (La Follia)

The central figure is closely based on El Greco’s earlier painting of a Boy Blowing on an Ember in Naples but the scene has been enlarged to include another male figure, wearing a yellow jacket and red cap, and a chained monkey, who emerges from the darkness on the left to look over the boy’s shoulder. The composition, known in two other autograph versions (one in Edinburgh from around 1590, and another in private collection from around 1578), has usually been interpreted as an allegory with some sort of moralising intent; it is unlikely that it was conceived simply as a genre scene. It bears the traditional title ‘F�bula’, meaning fable or story.

The sitter is presented simply, against a grey background, close to the picture plane and looking directly at the spectator. There is no detail or modelling in the costume, with the exception of the stiff white ruff. In spite of its unusual square format, there is no reason to think that this portrait has been reduced in height. The apparent absence of any artifice or rhetoric makes this one of El Greco’s most engaging portraits.

The dates proposed for the portrait range between 1584 and 1600, illustrating how much more difficult it is to date El Greco’s portraits than his subject pictures.

The painting originally was the upper part of the Annunciation.

In 1608 El Greco contracted to paint three altarpieces for the church of the Hospital of St John the Baptist (the Tavera Hospital). Located just outside the walls of Toledo, the hospital was founded in 1541 by Cardinal Juan Tavera (1472-1545), who is buried in the church. Of this project for the altarpieces, three pictures survive: an Annunciation (Colecci�n Santander Central Hispano, Madrid, the upper portion showing a choir of angels has been cut and is in the National Gallery, Athens), a Baptism (installed on a side altar in the church), and The Opening of the Fifth Seal (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

Probably soon after his arrival in Venice El Greco painted the Modena Triptych. Here he adapts Renaissance principles of representation to a small-scale triptych of a post-Byzantine design common in the Venetian empire. As the wings of the triptych are opened in succession, the sequence of images reveals the state of Man before the Fall to his restoration to a state of Grace through Christ. The scene of The Annunciation is the left panel on the back of the triptych.

The Modena Triptych strikingly illustrates El Greco’s transition from post-Byzantine icon painter to European artist of the Latin variety. The portable altarpiece, whose unknown patron perhaps stemmed from a Creto-Venetian family, in its open state shows a total of six scenes: on the front, the central panel bears a rare depiction of the Coronation of the Christian Knight, and on the wings we find the Adoration of the Shepherds on the left and the Baptism of Christ on the right. On the reverse, a View of Mount Sinai with its famous convent of St Catherine is flanked by an Annunciation and an Admonition of Adam and Eve by God the Father. This type of object with its gilded frame elements was common in Cretan workshops of the 16th century, as is its use of wood as a painting support.

This panel was executed by El Greco during his last years in Venice or at the beginning of his stay in Rome. The composition is based on a painting by Titian, now lost, intended for the high altar of the convent church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Murano. Although his stay in Venice was relatively brief, Venetian art had a profound effect on El Greco’s style, an influence we see increasing throughout the 1570s.

Proof of El Greco’s popularity among his contemporaries are the numerous replicas of a number of his pictures, painted by himself, which are still extant. Their quality is such that in several cases it is difficult to determine which was the original and which the replica. One of these is The Annunciation with its various shades of sparkling pearl-grey, with the painter’s signature in Greek letters in the left-hand corner of the picture. The painting in the Toledo Museum of Arts (Ohio, USA) is the closest to that in Budapest.

In 1608 El Greco contracted to paint three altarpieces for the church of the Hospital of St John the Baptist (the Tavera Hospital). Located just outside the walls of Toledo, the hospital was founded in 1541 by Cardinal Juan Tavera (1472-1545), who is buried in the church. Of this project for the altarpieces, three pictures survive: an Annunciation (Colecci�n Santander Central Hispano, Madrid, the upper portion showing a choir of angels has been cut and is in the National Gallery, Athens), a Baptism (installed on a side altar in the church), and The Opening of the Fifth Seal (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

The sitter, Antonio de Covarrubias y Leiva (1524-1602) was the son of a Toledan architect, the master of works at Toledo Cathedral, who also designed the fa�ade of the Alc�zar in the city. Antonio studied law at the University of Salamanca. He became a noted jurist, antiquarian, philosopher, poet, humanist and Hellenist. He was ordained in 1581 and made a canon of Toledo Cathedral. It was about this time that El Greco met Covarrubias. The two men felt at ease with each other, possibly speaking together in Greek. As a tribute to his friend, El Greco included Covarrubias in his Burial of the Count of Orgaz, where he is seen in profile towards the right.

In this austere yet sensitive representation El Greco demonstrates his skill as a portraitist. The sitter’s black costume contrasts with his white beard and the light flesh tones of his face. He seems lost in thoughts, his watery eyes looking into the void. The portrait was probably painted around 1600, when Covarrubias had become completely deaf.

Soon afterwards El Greco produced a copy of the portrait, which he paired with a posthumous portrait of Antonio’s brother Diego de Covarrubias, a distinguished canonist and adviser to Philip II. These paintings are now in the Museo de El Greco in Toledo.

Apostle, was brother of Peter, a Galilean fisherman, and the first to follow Christ (John 1:40-41). The gospels contribute little to his iconography; the chief source is the apocryphal book of the ‘Acts of Andrew’ (3rd century), retold in the Golden Legend. According to this he made missionary journeys to Scythian Russia, Asia Minor and Greece, preaching and performing many acts of healing. At Nicaea he delivered the inhabitants from seven demons who plagued them in the shape of dogs. At Thessalonica the parents of a young man whom he had converted to Christianity set fire to his house, with Andrew and their son in it. When the young man miraculously extinguished the fire by sprinkling a small bottle of water over the flames, his parents, still seeking vengeance, tried to enter the house by climbing ladders, but were immediately struck blind. The Golden Legend tells of a bishop dining with the devil, disguised as a courtesan. Just as he was about to yield to Satan, Andrew entered in the garb of a pilgrim, and drove the devil away. Andrew was executed by Egeas, the Roman governor of Patras in the Peloponnese. The governor’s wife, Maximilla, being cured of a fatal sickness by the apostle, adopted Christianity and was persuaded by him to deny her husband his marital rights ever again. This, and not his preaching, seems to have been the cause of Andrew’s imprisonment and subsequent crucifixion.

Andrew is the patron saint of Greece and Scotland. Among differing accounts of his relics, one tells of their being carried to the town of St Andrews in Scotland in the 4th century.

Apostle St Andrew in Art

He is usually portrayed as an old man, white-haired and bearded. His chief attribute is a cross in the shape of an X, or saltire, though in earlier Renaissance painting he may have the more familiar Latin cross. He sometimes has a net containing fish, or a length of rope (he was bound, not nailed, to the cross). His inscription from the Apostles’ Creed is: ‘Et in Jesum Christum, filium ejus unicum Dominum nostrum’. All these episodes from the legends are depicted, also the stages of his martyrdom: scourging; led by soldiers to his execution; being tied to the cross; crucifixion; burial, assisted by Maximilla.

It is sometimes held that this small painting is not the work of El Greco himself. A great many pictures representing apostles were produced in El Greco’s workshop, all faithfully executed in traditional style, and it is certain that no small number of them were painted by his pupils. However, the quality of this small size painting makes it probable that it was made by the painter himself.

The painting depicts the Apostle St Andrew who converted the ‘Scythians’; he was the brother of Peter and because he had been a follower of St John the Baptist he was known in the Greek-Christian tradition as Protocleitos (the first of those called). Andrew was the apostle of Byzantium and the gentle affection with which El Greco painted the likeness of the wise old man may be traced back to his childhood memories of Crete. He follows the traditional iconographical way of indicating inevitable martyrdom by depicting St Andrew with the upright of the cross over his shoulder, but the heavy wooden upright is a symbol and not an organic part of the composition. The essence of the picture is the majestic figure of the old apostle in his voluminous cloak; it is a study of a patient and wise teacher. El Greco very skilfully represents the shining silver hair and beard, and reveals exceptional mastery of his art in the painting of the face, especially the eyes, and in the harmony he creates by the use of blue-green-yellow hues in the cloak. For all these reasons this picture must be classed among the finest of El Greco’s smaller works.

The New Testament mentions the apostle by name only, but says nothing of his acts. The Golden Legend tells of a missionary journey he made to India, and of his death in Armenia by being flayed alive.

He is usually portrayed as dark-haired, bearded and of middle age. His invariable attribute is the knife with which he was flayed. Not uncommonly the flayed skin hangs over his arm, or is held in his hand, as in the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel (said to be a self-portrait of Michelangelo). His inscription, from the Apostles’ Creed, is ‘Credo in Spiritum Sanctum’. Typical narrative themes from Renaissance art show him preaching, exorcizing demons, baptizing, and being hauled before the authorities for refusing to worship idols. The most usual scene is the rather gruesome flaying. Artists sometimes follow the Hellenistic sculpture from Pergamum of the flaying of Marsyas.

Apostle St James the Greater was son of Zebedee, a fisherman of Galilee, and brother of John the Evangelist. He was among the circle of men closest to Christ, being present with Peter and John at the Transfiguration, and again at the Agony in the Garden, where the same three are seen sleeping while Christ prays. He was tried in Jerusalem in the year 44 by Herod Agrippa and executed.

Apostle St James the Greater in Art

The cycle of scenes of his trial and execution is represented in medieval frescoes and stained glass. The frescoes by Mantegna in the Eremitani chapel, Padua, were destroyed in 1944. A series of legends dating from the Middle Ages tells of his mission to Spain and burial at Compostella, both historically untenable, though the latter became one of the great centres of Christian pilgrimage. It is legend rather than Scripture that has been the chief source of inspiration to artists, especially Spanish. James appears as three distinct types:

(1) The Apostle. He is of mature years, thin-bearded, his hair brown or dark, parted and falling on either side in the manner of Christ. He holds the martyr’s sword. In later devotional art he holds the pilgrim’s staff which usually distinguishes him when grouped with other saints.

(2) The Pilgrim (13th century onwards). He wears the pilgrim’s broad-brimmed hat and cloak. From his staff or shoulder hangs the wallet or water-gourd of the pilgrim. His special attribute, the scallop shell, appears on his hat or cloak, or on the wallet.

(3) The Knight and Patron Saint of Spain. He is mounted on horseback holding a standard, and is dressed as a pilgrim or wears armour. His horse tramples the Saracen under its hooves.

James’ inscriptions are, from the Apostles’ Creed: ‘Qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine’; from the Epistle of James (1 : 19) (modified): ‘Omnis homo velox est’ - `Let every man be swift (to hear)‘.

Apostle St James the Greater and Spain

The many Spanish legends about him, some of which are represented in painting, date from about the 10th century and were probably promulgated in order to encourage pilgrimage to Compostella. One tells of his evangelizing mission to Spain after Christ’s Ascension. In Saragossa the Virgin appeared to him in a vision, seated on top of a pillar of jasper, and commanded him to build a chapel on the spot, a story that served to explain the foundation of the church of Nuestra Señora del Pilar. On his return to Jerusalem he converted and baptized a magician, Hermogenes, after each had tested his powers on the other, rather in the manner of the apostle Peter and Simon Magus. After James’ execution his disciples took his body back to Spain and, guided by an angel, landed at Padron in Galicia. Near here, in the palace of a pagan woman, Lupa, who was converted to Christianity by several miraculous occurrences, James was buried. His supposed tomb was discovered in about the 9th century and the place was called Santiago (St James) de Compostella. It was well-established as a place of pilgrimage by the 11th century, next in importance to Jerusalem and Rome. The origin of the scallop shell as the badge of the pilgrim to Compostella is open to more than one explanation.

Apostle St James the Less is generally regarded as the same person as James ‘the Lord’s brother’, mentioned by St Paul (Gal. 1:19), who became the first bishop of Jerusalem. Though ‘brother’ could here apply to any male relation, it came to be taken in the strict sense and was the source of the tradition that represents Christ and the saint somewhat alike in appearance. This similarity is helpful in identifying St James in scenes such as the Last Supper. It was sometimes given as the reason for the kiss of Judas, because the soldiers then knew which man to arrest. According to early sources James was martyred by being thrown from the roof of the Temple and then stoned and beaten to death. The Golden Legend relates that ‘a man in that company took a fuller’s staff and smote him on the head, that his brains fell all abroad’.

Apostle St James the Less in Art

James holds a fuller’s staff, which may be short- or long-handled, having a clubbed head; or it is shaped like a flat bat. It was once used by the fuller in the process of finishing cloth, to compact the material by beating it. From the early 14th century, especially in German art, he may instead hold a hatter’s bow, which was used in the manufacture of felt for hats and by wool-workers to clean wool. It may be shown without a bow-string.

James was the patron saint of hat-makers, mercers and other similar medieval guilds. As bishop of Jerusalem he may wear episcopal robes, with mitre and crozier.

El Greco’s painting does not follow thetraditional representations of the Apostle.

Apostle St John the Evangelist was the son of Zebedee, and brother of James and the presumed author of the fourth gospel and, by tradition, of the Apocalypse. He was one of the first to be called to follow Christ. He appears with Peter and James in the scene of the Transfiguration. At the Last Supper he is shown leaning his head on the breast of Christ, from the tradition that identified him with ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’. The Agony in the Garden shows him asleep with Peter and James, while Christ prays. In one version of the Crucifixion John and the Virgin are seen standing alone at the foot of the cross. He is shown among the figures at the Descent from the Cross, the lamentation (Pietà) that followed and at the Entombment. John appears at the Death of the Virgin and her Assumption because the apocryphal writings on which the scenes are based were ascribed to him. During the apostolic ministry John often accompanied the apostle Peter. He was traditionally identified with John who was exiled to the island of Patmos, where he wrote the book of Revelation. He was believed to have died at Ephesus at a great age.

Apostle St John the Evangelist in Art

John’s attributes are a book or scroll, in allusion to his writings, an eagle which may hold a pen or inkhorn in its beak, a chalice from which a snake emerges, a cauldron and a palm - not the martyr’s but one belonging to the Virgin and handed on to John at her death; he holds it only in scenes relating to her. John may be represented in two distinct ways: as the apostle he is young, sometimes rather effeminate and graceful, typically with long, flowing, curly hair, and is beardless; or in complete contrast as the evangelist, he is an aged greybeard. Among his inscriptions the commonest are ‘Passus sub Pontio Pilato’ - ‘He suffered under Pontius Pilate’, from the Apostles’ Creed; ‘In principio erat verbum’ - ‘In the beginning was the Word’ (John 1:1); ‘Lignum vitae afferens fructus’ - ‘The tree of life which yields (twelve crops of) fruit’ (Rev. 22:2).

The scenes from his life depicted in painting are The martyrdom of St John, St John on the island of Patmos writing the Revelation, The raising of Drusiana, St John changes sticks and stones into gold and jewels, St John drinking from the poisoned chalice, Death and ascension of St John.

Apostle and traditionally the author of the first gospel. He was a taxgatherer of Capernaum who, as he sat at the custom-house, was called by Christ to follow him. As one of the evangelists his attribute is a winged person resembling an angel, one of the ‘apocalyptic beasts’. It may be seen dictating as Matthew writes. He has book, pen and inkhorn, the attributes of the writer. As an apostle he holds a purse, a reminder of his previous occupation. According to legend he was martyred by beheading and may therefore have an axe or halberd. Among Matthew’s several inscriptions are ‘Sanctam ecclesiam catholicam; sanctorum communionem’ - ‘The Holy Catholic Church; the communion of saints’, from the Apostles’ Creed; ‘Primum querite regnum dei’ - ‘Set your mind on God’s kingdom before everything else’ (Matt. 6:33); ‘Liber generationis Jesu Christi’ - ‘A table of the descent of Jesus Christ’ (Matt. 1:1).

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 8 minutes):

Johann Sebastian Bach: St. Matthew Passion BWV 244 (excerpts)

Although not one of the original twelve whom Christ chose to be his closest followers, Paul became the ‘Apostles of the Gentiles’ following his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus, founding Christian communities in many places, including Crete. He appears in all of El Greco’s Apostolados, in place of St Matthias, the Apostle chosen after Christ’s ascension to replace Judas.

In this painting El Greco shows St Paul with a sword, the instrument of his martyrdom, and a letter inscribed in cursive Greek “To Titus, ordained first bishop of the church of the Cretans’.

St Paul appears a great number of times in El Greco’s oeuvre and he is depicted with remarkable consistency. The saint is always shown slightly balding, with dark hair and beard, wearing a red mantle thrown over a blue or green tunic.

An earlier version of this composition from about 1604 is in the City Art Museum, St Louis.

Peter, ‘the Prince of the Apostles’, was brother of Andrew and a fisherman of Galilee. He and his brother were called to be ‘fishers of men’. Peter was leader of the Twelve and one of the closest to Christ. His life divides into three parts: he accompanied Christ during his ministry; after the crucifixion he led the apostles in their teaching of the gospel (the Acts); according to several early accounts, he went to Rome where he established the first Christian community and was crucified by Nero in A.D. 64.

Apostle Peter in Art

His appearance has remained remarkably constant in art and he is the most immediately recognizable of the apostles. He is an old but vigorous man, with short grey curly hair, balding or tonsured, and a short, usually curly beard, and with broad, rustic features. He commonly wears a yellow (gold) cloak over a blue, or sometimes green, tunic. His special attribute is a key, or keys: ‘I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven’. (Matt. 16:19). A gold and a silver (or iron) key symbolize respectively the gates of heaven and hell, or the power to give absolution and to excommunicate. Other attributes are an upturned cross (his form of martyrdom), a crozier with triple transverses (papal), a book (the gospel), a cock (his denial) and more rarely a ship or a fish, symbols of the Church and of Christianity respectively, also of Peter’s occupation.

His inscription, from the Apostles’ Creed, is ‘Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, creatorem coeli et terrae.’ Devotional images are of three kinds: (1) Grouped with other apostles, he stands in first place, next to Christ. (2) With Paul, the pair represent the Jewish and gentile elements of the Church. (3) He wears papal vestments and tiara, as first bishop of Rome, or as a symbol of the papacy in Counter-Reformation art. Narrative scenes may be divided into three periods: (a) His participation in Christ’s ministry. (b) The apostolic ministry, as told in the Acts. © The Roman legends.

St Philip was from Bethsaida and was one of the first to be called to follow Christ. He was said to have journeyed to Scythia preaching the gospel. In the city of Hierapolis he succeeded, with the aid of the cross, in banishing a serpent or dragon which was the object of worship in the temple of Mars. As the monster emerged it gave off such a stink that many people died. The enraged priests of the temple captured Philip and crucified him. According to a tradition in the eastern Church Philip was crucified upside down like Peter.

His place in art is not prominent and devotional figures and scenes from his life are fairly rare. He is represented as a man in middle years, usually with a short beard. His attribute is the cross. In this representation by El Greco St Philip turns towards the cross on which he was believed to have been martyred; the short arm of the cross appears at the top of the picture.

Apostle St Simon is called the Zealot in both the Gospel according to St Luke (6:15) and in Acts (1:13). This name, transcribed from the Greek, is a translation of the Aramaic gan’anai, signifying the apostle’s membership of an extremely orthodox Jewish sect. Because he came from Cana, he is also known as the Canaanite or Cananaean. Like the other apostles, after Pentecost Simon vanished from view. Most or less trustworthy legends place his missionary work in Egypt. According to a sixth-century apocryphal tradition, he preached the Gospel in Persia with Jude (Judas Thaddaeus), where they were both martyred. Found guilty of overturning statues of the idols at the end of an argument with pagan priests and magicians, their throats were cut. According to another version, Simon was sawn in two, like the prophet Isaiah.

Apostle St Simon in Art

A twelfth-century relief designates Simon by the inscription, Cananaeus (cloister at Moissac). In numerous depictions, Simon is linked with Jude (Luis Borrassa, St Clare Altarpiece, 1414, Museum, Vich, Spain). The most common scenes including both apostles are the toppling of the idols (from which, according to the Golden Legend, emerge two “naked and black” Ethiopians) and their martyrdom. Simon was tied to a wheel while two executioners cut through his chest with a bucksaw (capital, Collegiate Church at St Aubin, Gu�rande, twelfth century). In the sixteenth century, D�rer shows Simon carrying a saw (engraving, 1523, Biblioth�que Nationale, Paris).

Before the thirteenth century, the Apostle is shown holding a scroll or a book. The saw appears as a specific attribute only later, becoming predominant by the 1400s. In the seventeenth century, however, Simon the Zealot is occasionally shown leafing through a book.

Attributes: Book. Saw (since the fifteenth century). Sword or spear (of martyrdom, very rare).

Apostle St Thaddeus (Jude), ‘the other Judas, not Iscariot’ (John 14:22), apostle and martyr, said to have preached the gospel in the countries neighbouring Palestine with Simon Zelotes, after Christ’s crucifixion. He was martyred in Persia.

Jude’s attribute is a club, halberd or lance, according to various accounts of his death. His inscription in early Italian painting is ‘Qui tollis peccata mundi’ ‘Thou who takest away the sins of the world’, from the Gloria of the Mass. He is the patron saint of lost causes.

Apostle St Thomas, called ‘Didymus’ (twin), popularly known as ‘doubting Thomas.’ He is generally young and beardless, especially in earlier Renaissance painting. His attributes are a builder’s ser-square or ruler, a girdle and a spear or dagger, the instrument of his martyrdom. His inscription, from the Apostles’ Creed, is ‘Descendit ad inferos tertia die resurrexit a mortuis’, a fitting text since it was Christ’s resurrection that Thomas doubted.

El Greco painted pairs of saints from the 1590s. This painting’s subject is the reconciliation between the two apostles who had been in disagreement, a fact shown by the joining of the hands, that intertwine without touching.

The intensive colours of the cloaks, whose energy underlines the Baroque contrasts of light and shade, did not prevent El Greco from creating a balanced composition. The delicate painting of the hands and portrait-like faces concentrate the attention on the humanity of Peter and Paul (the latter resembles El Greco), while the freely executed patches of clothing give a sense of the greatness of the apostles’ ministry.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 3 minutes):

Guillaume Dufay: Aurea luce, hymn for the feast of Sts Peter and Paul

This is the only version of this subject painted by El Greco.

The Baptism of Christ is the right panel on the front of the Modena Triptych.

The Modena Triptych strikingly illustrates El Greco’s transition from post-Byzantine icon painter to European artist of the Latin variety. The portable altarpiece, whose unknown patron perhaps stemmed from a Creto-Venetian family, in its open state shows a total of six scenes: on the front, the central panel bears a rare depiction of the Coronation of the Christian Knight, and on the wings we find the Adoration of the Shepherds on the left and the Baptism of Christ on the right. On the reverse, a View of Mount Sinai with its famous convent of St Catherine is flanked by an Annunciation and an Admonition of Adam and Eve by God the Father. This type of object with its gilded frame elements was common in Cretan workshops of the 16th century, as is its use of wood as a painting support.

The two paintings in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in Rome (Adoration of the Shepherds, Baptism of Christ) were considered workshop pieces or autograph replicas of two of the three pictures that El Greco executed for the Colegio de Doña Mar�a de Arag�n in Madrid (now dispersed and housed in the Muzeul de Arta, Bucharest and the Museo del Prado, Madrid). However, a recent radiographic analysis (1997) has proven that they are original oil sketches by the hand of El Greco himself. The presence of pentimenti, compositional emendations beneath the paint surface, reveals the creative process of the artist and leads to the conclusion that these are not copies but preparatory bozzetti for the Madrid cycle. The important commission, probably designed as a triptych to decorate the high altar of the chapel, was given to El Greco in 1596: work continued until the Holy Year of 1600. The third oil sketch, depicting the Annunciation, is preserved at the museum in Bilbao.

The silvery light, the coloristic range based on cold tones, the quick, almost impressionistic brushwork and the use of strong contrasts of light and shadow in this picture are all typical characteristics of El Greco’s Spanish manner (1576-1614).

There is only one surviving sculpture by El Greco’s own hand in the Toledo Cathedral. Several others were executed by J. B. Monegro after designs by El Greco, among them a series of Apostles.

This painting belongs to the series of Apostles (Apostolodos) in the Toledo Cathedral.

This painting is among the most beautiful devotional paintings of El Greco. It was very successful: there are seven closely related versions of this image for private meditation.

El Greco treated the theme many times in Spain, there are seven closely related versions of this successful composition for private meditation. The earliest dates from soon after the Espolio, to which it is essentially related. The subject of the Espolio is not repeated, but the Christ becomes the prototype for the Christ Carrying the Cross. This is a signed, late version.

The reason for the popularity of El Greco’s devotional paintings is obvious. Not only are they brilliantly rendered; they also capture the piety and emotion of Counter-Reformation spirituality and provided a stimulus for prayer and devotion.

Three versions of this subject are known, all basically the same in composition, but differing in treatment. The earliest, an unsigned panel in Dresden, is looser in composition, smaller in conception, and introduces genre motifs of a dog, sack and pitcher in the foreground, eliminated in subsequent versions. This painting was executed under the influence of Venetian painting, in the 17th century it was attributed to Paolo Veronese, later to Jacopo Bassano.

Possibly the sequel to the Christ driving the Traders from the Temple (Matthew, XXI, 14: ‘And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them’). Both subjects were treated by El Greco more than once in Italy. This is the smallest known painting on canvas by El Greco. The painting has been cut and the group on the right is incomplete. No large-scale works are known from his Italian period, and most are quite small. He does not appear to have received any important commissions before he moved to Spain.

Three versions of this subject are known, all basically the same in composition, but differing in treatment. The earliest, an unsigned panel in Dresden, is looser in composition, smaller in conception, and introduces genre motifs of a dog, sack and pitcher in the foreground, eliminated in subsequent versions. The present painting, probably also painted in Venice, is more easily composed. The third and largest painting, now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York (possibly identical with the one in a Madrid collection at the time of Cossio’s pioneer work on El Greco), with its comparative largeness of conception, belongs to his Roman period, after 1570. El Greco did not again take up the subject in Spain.

The inspiration is from Venice. The dramatic use of recession behind the figures in the foreground is Tintoretto’s invention. El Greco is still borrowing certain motifs, but the composition would seem to be original. The painting was among the Farnese possessions in the seventeenth century, and was probably brought to Rome by the artist, unless it was painted soon after his arrival in 1570. The figure on the extreme left, looking out towards the spectator, is certainly the young El Greco. He appears, however, nearer twenty than thirty years old.

Three versions of this subject are known, all basically the same in composition, but differing in treatment. The earliest, an unsigned panel in Dresden, is looser in composition, smaller in conception, and introduces genre motifs of a dog, sack and pitcher in the foreground, eliminated in subsequent versions. The second painting, now in Parma, probably also painted in Venice, is more easily composed. The third and largest painting, now in New York (possibly identical with the one in a Madrid collection at the time of Cossio’s pioneer work on El Greco), with its comparative largeness of conception, belongs to his Roman period, after 1570. This version was earlier attributed to Tintoretto, then Veronese. In Madrid, there is also a 17th century copy of the painting.

The version in New York is the most sketchy in execution and is, in fact, unfinished. The two seated figures in the middle ground were so thinly painted that the pavement is visible through them.

Until recently there was a consensus of opinion that the New York version was the latest of the three treatments of the subject and possibly dated from El Greco’s first years in Spain. However, in 1991 a number of scholars dated it between the Dresden and Parma pictures. The question of datation is open.

In this painting the painter created a symbol of Jesus as God the redeemer of humankind. He does not show the pain and suffering experienced by Christ as a man, but rather a much more spiritualised iconography. Christ is the Son of God with the symbols of His sacrifice.

This painting is probably was painted as an individual work, not belonging to a series of Christ with the Apostles (known in Spanish as Apostolado). Christ is represented as the Saviour of the World (Salvator Mundi). The long and narrow head of Christ, the frontal position and the hieratic quality of the representation are strongly reminiscent of Byzantine images of the Pantocrator (Christ as Ruler of all). There are taller versions of this representation in Toledo, in the Museo de El Greco and in the Cathedral.

The Christ as Saviour in this series of Apostles is one of El Greco’s most impressive treatments of the subject, taller in format than the earlier version in Edinburgh. Christ is shown here both as Saviour of the World (Salvator Mundi) and the Light of the World. Radiant with divine light, he rests his hand on a globe enveloped in the folds of his cloak. His symmetrical frontal pose and physiognomy recall Byzantine images of Christ as Pantocrator (Ruler of All).

The Christ in Agony on the Cross, with a view of Toledo. Another - and finer - version is in the Museum of Art, Cleveland, but with part of the landscape cut away. Christ on the Cross is left alone ‘and there was a darkness over all the earth … and the sun was darkened, and the veil of the Temple was rent in the midst’ (St Luke, XXIII, 44-45), and he commends his spirit to His Lord. El Greco was in sympathy with the apocalyptical atmosphere of the theme. From the time of the San Jos� paintings, El Greco often chose to include a view of Toledo in his paintings. It is in no way a naturalistic view, but is transformed as all else in his painting.

This painting was probably executed by the workshop.

El Greco treated this subject of Christ on the Cross several times throughout his career. The present version is one of only three surviving large-scale versions of this composition. In it El Greco has chosen to use the ‘Cristo Vivo’ iconography, in which the Christ figure is shown alive and without indication of His suffering or wounds. The original source for the figure is almost certainly a drawing by Michelangelo that was commissioned by Vittoria Colonna and is today in the British Museum. He most probably knew this particular design from a print, a notion supported by the reversal of the figure of Christ in the painting from the original drawing.

The present painting exists in numerous autograph and studio versions in both large and reduced format.

A priest and a nobleman, probably the patrons who commissioned the painting, are shown praying before Christ on the cross. (It is assumed by some scholars that they are the brothers Diego and Antonio Covarrubias.) El Greco has included realistic details such as the drops of blood trickling from Christ’s forehead, hands and feet, while leaving his torso and legs unstained. Light and shadow model Christ’s musculature, the elongation of his contorted body enhancing a sense of his suffering. Above his head a sheet of paper stuck to the cross informs us in Hebrew, Greek and Latin that he is Jesus of Nazareth, with the additional ironic words in Greek hailing him as the King of Jews.

The influence of Michelangelo - whose works El Greco would have known in Rome - is recognized in the depiction of the naked Christ. In fact, the posture and anatomy of El Greco’s Christ echo in reverse Michelangelo’s drawing for Vittoria Colonna.

On the painting a priest and a nobleman, probably the patrons who commissioned the painting, are shown praying before Christ on the cross. This detail shows the priest whose white surplice is similar to that worn by the priest in El Greco’s Burial of the Count of Orgaz. He contemplates Christ’s sacrifice with compassion and sobriety, his gaze leading our eyes upwards to Christ.

Despite the signature it is doubtful whether the picture is by Greco’s own hand. Copies of the St John and the Virgin, perhaps by Jorge Manuel, are in the possession of the Hispanic Society of America, New York.

Diego de Covarrubias y Leiva (1512-1577) was the elder brother of Antonio de Covarrubias, a close friend of El Greco and reputedly one of the most learned men of his time. Diego was a distinguished churchman, canon lawyer and administrator. El Greco never met him, and despite its lively character the painting was based on a portrait by Alonso S�nchez Coello showing Covarrubias when sixty-two years old.

The painting has a pendant, also in the Museo de El Greco, showing Diego’s younger brother Antonio - an autograph copy of El Greco’s painting in the Louvre.

A few sculptures, including these two strange nudes, have been attributed to El Greco. This attribution is doubtful, however. It is based on the testimony of Pacheco, who saw in El Greco’s studio a series of figurines of wax, stucco, and wood, but these may have been merely models, like those used in the Italian workshops where El Greco was trained. The figures illustrated recall certain nudes in paintings by El Greco in their elongated proportions, their supple postures, and their opposition in contrapposto. Nevertheless, they also evoke certain Florentine mannerists, Sansovino or Cellini, and their naturalism and the accentuated musculature of the male figure are surprising for El Greco.

The identification of the statuettes is also problematical. Originally thought to represent Adam and Eve or even Vulcan and Venus, they were correctly identified as representing Epimetheus and Pandora in 1961. According to the Greek poet Hesiod, Pandora was the first woman, created from the earth and water. She was brought to life with heavenly fire and married Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus. Zeus gave her a beautiful box containing all manner of evils and calamities and Pandora or according to some versions of the myth, Epimetheus, opened it, releasing them into the world.

These small statuettes are carved in wood and painted in oils, the traditional materials of Spanish polychrome sculpture. They are undocumented works but the attribution to the artist is generally accepted.

The sudarium (the cloth with which Veronica wiped Christ’s face on the way to Calvary) is shown like a precious object, surrounded by a carved frame that is held by two cherubs or putti. (The cherubs were carved by Juan Bautista Monegro (c. 1545-1621). The ensemble formed part of the elaborate frame of the main altarpiece for the Cistercian convent of Santo Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo. Probably this was the last part of the altarpiece El Greco painted.

In the painting, El Greco created a hauntingly disembodied likeness, with Christ staring at the viewer in the fashion of a Byzantine icon.

The sitter was probably Doña Jer�nima de las Cuevas.

Hortensio F�lix Paravicino y Arteaga (1580-1633) was a Trinitarian friar who came to know El Greco during the painter’s last years. His family was of Italian origin but he was born in Madrid. Already Professor of Rhetoric at the University of Salamanca at the age of twenty-one, he was a figure of great intellectual brilliance and authority in the Spain of Philip III and Philip IV. He was a prolific poet and renowned orator. Paravicino dedicated four sonnets to El Greco’s memory in a volume of poems published in 1641. This included the oft-quoted lines: ‘Crete gave him life, Toledo his brushes and a better homeland…’ Another of the sonnets, celebrating the portrait, tells us that it was painted when poet was twenty-nine years of age.

The complete frontality of the pose, the enormous simplicity, and the absence of any setting contribute to the feeling of spiritual presence, comparatively absent from the splendid portrait of Cardinal Guevara. The inspired rhythm and handling is no less a living thing than the man himself. It is one of the greatest masterpieces of portraiture and painting of all time.

Giulio Clovio (1498-1578), a ‘Greek’ from Croatia, friend of El Greco’s, worked as a miniaturist in the Farnese Library. He is portrayed holding an open book, his most famous work, an illuminated manuscript the Libro della Vergine, known as the Farnese Hours (at the time in the Farnese Library, and now in the The Morgan Library and Museum, New York). The book is shown open at folios 59v, showing God the Father creating the Sun and Moon, and 60r, showing the Holy Family.

The portrait was painted probably soon after El Greco arrived in Rome (November 1570), and almost certainly for his friend. In the seventeenth century, it was in the possession of Fulvio Orsini, librarian to Cardinal Farnese. This is perhaps the earliest independent portrait by the artist who was to become one of the greatest portrait painters of all time. Three splendid portraits belong to his Italian years: the present portrait, possibly the earliest, and the signed portrait of a man in Copenhagen, both Titianesque; and the more personal Vincentio Anastagi, a signed portrait in the Frick Collection, New York. It is unfortunate that the self-portrait mentioned by Giulio Clovio is lost.

In August 1577 El Greco was formally engaged by Diego de Castilla (¹⁵¹⁰⁄₁₅-1584), dean of Toledo Cathedral, to paint three altarpieces for the Cistercian convent of Santo Domingo el Antiguo. The two side altars were to be decorated with The Adoration of the Shepherds (now in private collection) and The Resurrection (still in situ), while the main altar received an enormous, multi-tiered altarpiece with six canvases that had as its focus The Assumption of the Virgin (signed and dated 1577, now in the Art Institute, Chicago) and The Trinity (Prado, Madrid). The complex was among the most ambitious of El Greco’s career and constituted one of his finest achievements. The missing canvases - The Assumption of the Virgin, The Trinity, and the half-length figures of Saint Benedict (Prado, Madrid) and Saint Bernard (private collection) - have been replaced by copies, so that the character of the altarpiece can still be appreciated.

El Greco’s talents doubtless came to the attention of Don Diego through his illegitimate son Luis, whom the artist would have known in Rome in about 1571-75. It is possible that El Greco was approached for the commission in Rome and that his move to Spain was prompted by the prospect of this magnificent opportunity. Certainly, this commission initiated El Greco’s career in Toledo in the most auspicious manner conceivable.

El Greco was supplied with plans of the church as well as designs for the frames of the lateral altarpieces drawn up by Juan de Herrera, Philip II’s architect at the Escorial. El Greco had furnished drawings for the project and he promised to paint the specified scenes to the complete satisfaction of Don Diego and to remain in Toledo until the work was finished. Additionally, he was to superintend the design of the frames as well as of a tabernacle and five statues to adorn the main altarpiece - two of Prophets and three of Virtues (Faith, Charity and Hope). Like the frames, these statues were carved - with significant modifications - by Juan Bautista Monegro (c. 1545-1621), who was also responsible for the cherubs holding an escutcheon with the sudarium.

This involvement with the frames of his altarpieces as well as with their sculptural adornment was to become typical of El Greco, who owned the architectural treatises of Vitruvius and Serlio and in Venice had learned to model figures in clay and wax to study elaborate poses. It was by means of his carefully articulated, almost rigorously classical frames that El Greco created a neutral foil for the agitated, spiritual world his paintings conjure up. In the great Assumption of the Virgin, the Apostle closest to the picture frame turns his back to the viewer, thus closing off the steep, notional space of the painting: the viewer is a distanced spectator. By contrast, in the smaller, lateral altarpiece of The Adoration of the Shepherds, a half-length figure of Saint Jerome seems to pose a book on the edge of the frame and turns to address the viewer, serving as a link between two worlds: he is painted in a distinctly more realistic style than the figures of The Adoration, positioned deeper in space, and he thus serves as a mediator between the real and the fictive.

A repetition painted after the original made for the Hospital de Tavera in Toledo in 1595.

The identification of the sitter is based on a comparison with a print of 1613 by the engraver and silversmith Pedro �ngel. Jer�nimo de Cevallos (1562-1644) studied law at Salamanca University and in about 1600 settled in Toledo to practise as a lawyer. He became a member of the city council in 1605 and following his wife’s death, a priest. He acquired fame for his writings on legal questions.

The painting is undoubtedly one of El Greco’s portrait masterpieces, demonstrating not only his technical skill but also his great sensitivity to his sitter. While the enormous ruff might seem a little pretentious, the face, with its tremulous outline and slightly drawn features, conveys dignity and serenity.

While the enormous ruff might seem a little pretentious, the face, with its tremulous outline and slightly drawn features, conveys dignity and serenity.

The patron saint was identified as St Louis of France. The collaboration of the workshop is assumed.

In the background, a view of Toledo, as Troy, and the Trojan Horse. El Greco would have known the sculptured group in Rome, uncovered at the beginning of the sixteenth century, but more significantly he would have known the original story, which he has interpreted in an entirely independent way. This is the only known painting of classical subject matter by El Greco, and he does seem to give it a special spiritual meaning. The horizontal format is uncharacteristic of his works in Spain, which become increasingly more elevated in composition and spirit. The essential verticality of the composition is made clear, however, by the high horizon and the upward movement of the flanking figures. The view of Toledo appears to have been taken from the same view-point as that of the Metropolitan Museum painting, which it continues to the right, the two together completing the panorama of the town. The panoramic View and Plan of Toledo in the Museo de El Greco, Toledo, is taken from a different viewpoint.

Recent cleaning has uncovered a third figure in the group on the right, which El Greco had overpainted.

In the background, a view of Toledo, as Troy.

In the background, a view of Toledo, as Troy, and the Trojan Horse.

In the background, a view of Toledo, as Troy, and the Trojan Horse.

The main figures on the right of the painting who stand by as the horrid spectacle unfolds have been variously identified as Paris and Helen, Adam and Eve, Poseidon and Cassandra, Apollo and Artemis. Contributing to the difficulty of interpretation is the ambivalent physical state of the figure group. The main figures are usually said to be male and female but there can be no absolute certainty, owing to its condition, that the figure looking out of the painting to the right is female. When the picture was cleaned in 1955-56, there emerged the middle head and the fifth leg that appears between the two figures. El Greco may never have wanted this mysterious figure to be visible, perhaps intending that it should be replaced by the figure looking out of the painting. The execution of the painting may have been interrupted, perhaps by the artist’s death, before he was able to cover up the leg and head, thus leaving the picture in its current, not quite finished state.

After a short period of study in Greece, El Greco, one of the most renowned figure in Spanish art, went to Venice in the middle of the sixteenth century, where he worked in Titian’s workshop, and where he became familiar with the art of Paolo Veronese, Jacopo Bassano and Tintoretto, as well as works by representatives of the North Italian Mannerist school. Later, in Rome, he was strongly influenced by the work of Michelangelo. By the time he had settled in Toledo around 1576, his art was fully developed. Like most of the painters coming from Italy, he was anxious to enter the service of King Philip II, but the Greek painter’s immediacy of passion, ecstatic style, disturbing colours and visionary conceptions did not please the king’s academic Italian taste. He was, however, appreciated by the religious orders and the aristocratic patrons of Toledo.

The penitent Magdalen must have been painted at the beginning of his years in Toledo because the strong influence of paintings on the same theme by Titian can be observed. The ideal of beauty is still Titian’s half-figure pictures of women, but the inner tension of the whole composition and the relation between man and nature already indicate the beginning of Mannerism. The arrangement of the fingers of the right hand is a characteristic feature of El Greco’s painting. It is assumed by some critics that the sitter of the painting was Jer�nima de las Cuevas, the mistress of the artist.

Portrayed as a hermit saint, Mary Magdalen sits alone outside her cave, which according to legend was at St-Baume in southern France. During the course of his career El Greco developed five different compositions representing the Magdalen in penitence. This is an excellent example of the first of these developed soon after his arrival in Spain. Demand for such images was so strong that El Greco had copies made in his workshop from his originals. In this painting, the refined execution of the drapery and of the still-life indicate the hand of El Greco himself.

In this composition El Greco drew on Titian’s interpretation of the subject in a painting now in the Hermitage. However, El Greco’s rendition is more emotionally charged. A later version of the same composition in the Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City shows the Magdalen in exactly the same position but with the landscape to the left and the still-life to the right.

The Penitent Magdalen is one of the most recurrent themes. She and Saint Veronica, both close to Christ and His Passion, are the only female Saints El Greco treated. A comparison with the Saint Sebastian indicates a somewhat later dating. An earlier version, signed, of identical pose, is in the Art Museum, Worcester, U.S.A.; and one of the final representation s is the ecstatic Magdalene in the Vald�s Collection, Bilbao. The painting is based on a Titian type, although there is no record that he portrayed the Saint before he moved to Spain.

During the course of his career El Greco developed five different compositions representing the Magdalen in penitence. Compared with the earlier Magdalen in Budapest, here El Greco conveys a vision of complete penitence. Sensual beauty has given way to a meditative attitude.

The picture shows the back of the central panel of the Modena Triptych. The theme of Mount Sinai was of Cretan origin, and faithfully repeats a traditional Byzantine model. The reference to Saint Catherine in both the central panels has been suggested as a possible indication of the artist’s connection in Crete with the monastery of Saint Catherine, a dependency of that of Mount Sinai, and the most important school of painting in the island.

The Modena Triptych does contain motifs and compositions that he later develops. The subjects of the Annunciation, Adoration of the Shepherds and Baptism inspire some of El Greco’s grandest works. The Allegory of the Christian Knight is appropriately recollected in the Allegory of the Holy League. The Byzantine image of Mount Sinai is not unreasonably brought to mind in front of the late Toledo.

The painting was probably made for the antiquarian Fulvio Orsini, librarian to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, in whose palace the artist lived from 1570 to 1572. It shows the peaks of Mount Sinai, a place sacred to Judaism and Christianity, of special significance for Eastern Orthodoxy, and revered by Muslims. At the centre is Mount Horeb, where Moses received the tablets of the Ten Commandments from God. On the left is Mount Epistene. The peak on the right is St Catherine’s Mount, where the early Christian Martyr Catherine had been buried. The small citadel at the foot of Mount Horeb is the monastery that to this day bears her name.

The St Catherine’s Monastery is venerated as the spiritual home of Byzantine Orthodoxy and it was a great centre of pilgrimage. In the painting, on the left are three Western pilgrims, while on the right is a group of Eastern pilgrims with camels.

The view of the holy site is based on engravings of Mount Sinai which could be found in travel books. El Greco painted a similar view on the reverse of the Modena Triptych.

In formal portraiture of the period, it is characteristic that the individuality of the sitter is subservient to the manifestation of virtue. El Greco’s portrait of an unknown knight with his hand on his breast is an example. He is shown solemnly committing his whole being to a higher principle, for the gesture of placing the right hand on the heart signalled not only pious respect but also a declaration of intent that would be upheld as a matter of honour. Since the knight directly faces and presents himself to the viewer, exactly as if he were making a vow, the viewer becomes a witness to his solemn act.

Formerly the painting was supposed to be a portrait of Juan da Silva, Marques de Montmayor, ‘Notario Mayor’ of Toledo. The hand has been completely painted over.

Autograph version, signed ‘dom�nikos theot�kopoulos epoiei’. It is a late composition of the artist, recalling the iconography of Titian.

This painting is a version of the Pietà in Philadelphia, varying the scale, colours and landscape. These Pietàs represent an important step towards El Greco’s mature style, in which he was enabled by his experience of Venetian and Roman renaissance art to leave behind forever the artistic values of his provincial post-Byzantine heritage.

A translation in paint of Michelangelo’s late sculptured group of the Pietà in Florence Cathedral, at the time in Rome. The pattern and the feeling are the same. The figures of the Dead Christ, His Mother, Saint Mary Magdalene and Joseph of Arimathea make one compact group. Michelangelo achieved this by his new treatment of form; El Greco by paint, by employing broader, more continuous passages of colour. The more vivid colours of Rome combine with the richer palette of Venice to convey the intensity of expression demanded by the subject. The horizontal composition of Venice, more suited to a narrative type of subject than to the single image, is given up and is only very rarely found appropriate in Spain.

Michelangelo’s Pietà group was not the only source on which El Greco drew: the arrangement of Christ’s legs and his outspread arms, no less than the idea of viewing one of the two bearers of his body from the side and the other from behind, derive from Michelangelo’s drawing for Vittoria Colonna, in which, as in El Greco’s painting, the Virgin is placed behind and above Christ.

In the collection of the Hispanic Society of America is a larger version of the subject, unsigned, in oil on canvas, for which this may be a study. The subject is not repeated in Spain.

Alonso de Ercilla y Z�niga (1533-1594) was a Spanish soldier and poet, author of La Araucana (1569-89), the most celebrated Spanish Renaissance epic poem and the first epic poem about America.

This portrait is an example of El Greco’s late work. Juan Pardo de Tavera (1472-1545) held both important ecclesiastical and political offices under Charles V, being active among other things as Grand Inquisitor and government chief of Castile. He founded in 1541 the Hospital de San Juan Bautista. By the time of his portrayal, however, he had long been deceased, the portrait was commissioned by Pedro Salazar de Mendoza, an important figure in Toledo’s religious life, and the administrator of the Hospital de San Juan Bautista.

The painting is signed at the bottom right.

The identity of the sitter is confirmed by a portrait in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid with an inscription of his name.

This autograph painting is perhaps a fragment or a study for a larger composition. Earlier the sitter was identified as the portrait of the painter Juan Bautista Maino, who was a friar.

The inscription at the top of the painting: Rodrigo V�zquez Presidente de Castilla. The attribution of the canvas, cut on the sides, is almost universally accepted.

The sitter is usually identified as Cardinal Don Fernando Niño de Guevera (1541-1609), Grand Inquisitor and, from 1601, Archbishop of Seville. The painting was executed c. 1600, when Inquisitor-General, and certainly before he became Archbishop of Seville. He is one of a number of eminent ecclesiastics of Toledo portrayed by El Greco, and it is one of his finest portraits. The splendour and richness of colour is appropriate to the character and rank of the sitter. The frontal turn of the pose concentrates attention on the figure. El Greco suggests the cardinal’s personality through the emphasis on his prominent glasses, the compulsive gesture of his left hand, the animated, nervous brushwork, and the singular colour range. The painting is signed on the creased paper on the floor.

This celebrated picture - a landmark in the history of European portraiture - has become synonymous not only with El Greco but with Spain and the Spanish Inquisition.

His finely wrought features framed by a manicured, greying beard and crimson biretta, the sitter is perched like some magnificent bird of prey in a gold-fringed chair. The round-rimmed glasses confer on his gaze a frightening, hawkish intensity as he examines the viewer with an air of implacable, even cruel detachment.

The painting is in a bad state of conservation.

The painting is signed ‘dom�nikos theotok�poulos epoiei’.

The sitter was identified with Alonso Mart�nez de Leiva, knight of the Order of Santiago. The original inscription became partly illegible due to restoration and drastic cleaning.

El Greco probably painted the portrait in Rome several years after moving there in November 1570. Here he became a friend of the Farnese family and thus part of intellectual circles with an interest in the philosophical issues of Renaissance humanism.

The chalk holder on the armrest, accompanied by a book with white and red bookmarks, suggests that the unknown man in the painting might be an artist. He makes an eloquent gesture characteristic for an orator.

In the absence of documentary evidence there is no basis for making definite identification of the sitter, although many proposals can be found in the literature. The portrait demonstrates that El Greco successfully assimilated the Venetian style of portrait-painting while working in the city between 1567 and 1570. Indeed, until his signature was rediscovered in 1898, the picture was thought to be a self-portrait by Tintoretto.

Work by El Greco in small format, which includes miniatures, small-scale religious paintings and reduced versions of larger compositions, is well documented from the time of his residence in Italy onwards. Yet this interesting portrait miniature remains one of the few known in his oeuvre. It bears an original signature on the back.

This painting was identified for long time as a self-portrait and as such it became one of El Greco’s most famous portraits. However, lacking certified portraits of the artist, the identification is only a plausible hypothesis based on the resemblance of the sitter to other figures in El Greco’s paintings that have also been thought to record the artist’s features. There are several assumed self-portraits of the artist included in his compositions from the early Healing of the Blind to the Burial of Count Orgaz, then to the Pentecost, Marriage of the Virgin and the Adoration of the Shepherds.

Regardless of the identification of the sitter, this is a fine and particularly compelling portrait by the artist, with the features painted with great sensitivity. The canvas has been trimmed on all sides. The signature on the painting proved to be false and was removed in 1947.

The problem of identification surrounds this portrait, usually identified as the famous sculptor Pompeo Leoni, the major sculptor at the court of Philip II, the son of Leone Leoni, who had been employed in a similar capacity by Philip’s father, Charles V. A serious objection to this identification is the fact that the marble bust of Philip II included in the painting is significantly different from those attributable to Leoni.

The sitter is depicted as a practitioner of a liberal art. He is elegantly and modestly dressed in black. His dark, penetrating eyes and high brow imply his intellectual capacity. The hammer is poised to suggest his mental deliberation. El Greco has ingeniously applied the conventional formula of the self-portrait, in which the artist turns to face the viewer while working at the easel. Wittily, the viewer can imagine the sculptor looking at the sitter (Philip II) posing for his bust portrait.

The portrait was surely known by Vel�zquez, whose 1635 portrait of the great Seville sculptor Juan Mart�nez Montañ�s seems to reflect it.

The painting is signed ‘dom�nikos theotok�poulos epoiei’. The attribution to El Greco is universally accepted by critics.

Long thought to be a self-portrait by El Greco, this painting is now universally agreed to represent the painter’s son, Jorge Manuel Theotokopoulos (1578-1631).

Jorge Manuel appears about the same age as in the Virgin of Charity, painted 1603-05, that is, when he was twenty-five to twenty-seven years old. The young gentleman, of a certain aristocratic mien, displays elegantly the tools of his craft. It is one of his most splendid portraits, but it is with difficulty that one relates the personality to that of the Saint Luke. Jorge Manuel was not a remarkable painter like his father.

Here El Greco depicts his son as an artist and at the same time as a member of the upper class. In the eyes of his Spanish contemporaries, an artist’s palette and a ruff collar were still incompatible. By 1900, in contrast, artists were attending academies and the most successful among them enjoyed high social status.

Having the previous month signed the contract for The Disrobing of Christ for the vestry of Toledo Cathedral, in August 1577 El Greco was formally engaged by Diego de Castilla (¹⁵¹⁰⁄₁₅-1584), dean of Toledo Cathedral, to paint three altarpieces for the Cistercian convent of Santo Domingo el Antiguo. The two side altars were to be decorated with The Adoration of the Shepherds and The Resurrection (still in situ), while the main altar received an enormous, multi-tiered altarpiece with six canvases that had as its focus The Assumption of the Virgin (signed and dated 1577, now in the Art Institute, Chicago) and The Trinity (Prado, Madrid). The complex was among the most ambitious of El Greco’s career and constituted one of his finest achievements. The missing canvases - The Assumption of the Virgin, The Trinity, and the half-length figures of Saint Benedict and Saint Bernard - have been replaced by copies, so that the character of the altarpiece can still be appreciated.

El Greco was supplied with plans of the church as well as designs for the frames of the lateral altarpieces drawn up by Juan de Herrera, Philip II’s architect at the Escorial. El Greco had furnished drawings for the project and he promised to paint the specified scenes to the complete satisfaction of Don Diego and to remain in Toledo until the work was finished. Additionally, he was to superintend the design of the frames as well as of a tabernacle and five statues to adorn the main altarpiece - two of Prophets and three of Virtues (Faith, Charity and Hope). Like the frames, these statues were carved - with significant modifications - by Juan Bautista Monegro (c. 1545-1621), who was also responsible for the cherubs holding an escutcheon with the sudarium.

This involvement with the frames of his altarpieces as well as with their sculptural adornment was to become typical of El Greco, who owned the architectural treatises of Vitruvius and Serlio and in Venice had learned to model figures in clay and wax to study elaborate poses. It was by means of his carefully articulated, almost rigorously classical frames that El Greco created a neutral foil for the agitated, spiritual world his paintings conjure up. In the great Assumption of the Virgin, the Apostle closest to the picture frame turns his back to the viewer, thus closing off the steep, notional space of the painting: the viewer is a distanced spectator. By contrast, in the smaller, lateral altarpiece of The Adoration of the Shepherds, a half-length figure of Saint Jerome seems to pose a book on the edge of the frame and turns to address the viewer, serving as a link between two worlds: he is painted in a distinctly more realistic style than the figures of The Adoration, positioned deeper in space, and he thus serves as a mediator between the real and the fictive.

The Santo Domingo altarpieces were a fitting debut for Toledo’s greatest artistic genius, newly arrived from Italy, his mind filled with the most advanced ideas about the possibilities of art as a communicator of ideas and as a vehicle for the expression of spiritual values.