El Greco – modern before modernism

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A 2004 book on El Greco is re-issued

El Greco: A Prophet of Modernism 1541–1614 by Michael Scholz-Hansel

This book is clearly aimed at the market that encompasses the enthusiastic amateur, the student of art history, and the sixth former and it largely succeeds in providing a grounding in the artist for further study. As ever in a short introduction to the life and works of an artist, the author and the editor have to be mindful concerning what has to be omitted as much as what is to be included. The central thesis of El Greco’s importance for modern art has been championed by a number of German art historians over the years and has recently become fashionable again. Thus the last chapter (‘The first “Homeless Man of Art” and the Avant-Garde’) is worthy of its place but one and a half pages of text does little to advance the argument.

As to the rest of the book there are some areas that must be approached with caution and could lead to confusion. There are few slips such as putting the date of birth the artist’s son, Jorge Manuel, as ‘1587’ when it was 1578. There are also a number of occasions when El Greco is described as ‘the Greek’ or ‘from Greece’ when he was in fact neither (as the author makes clear on page 7). More seriously, El Greco is said to have been married twice first to a ‘Greek’ and secondly to ‘a Spaniard’ but no evidence is given to support these assertions. (There is a document which describes Dona Jeronima de las Cuevas, the mother of Jorge Manuel, as ‘una soltera’ which means ‘an unmarried woman’ but this is not mentioned in the text).

The author makes some contentious claims, such as that ‘the advances’ of Galileo Galilei were ‘possible not despite the Catholic Church but only thanks to its support’, which would appear to need more explanation. The discussion of how El Greco’s art developed in response to the Counter-Reformation  concentrates more on ‘the Baroque and ‘the new “expressionistic” stylistic traits’ than on the circumstances in which the works were commissioned. Neither is there any consideration of other influences such as Neo-Platonism or Gian Paolo Lomazzo’s theories of art, which were current at the time.

Concerning El Greco’s Greek heritage and learning, the book refers to a comment by Lucian (c.125–c.180AD) on the 5th-century BC sculptor Phidias as ‘inscribing his works in precisely this way’ when discussing how El Greco has signed the early Dormition of the Virgin [in the Greek Orthodox church, Mary is thought to have gone to sleep – a dormition – not died, before her ascension]. In fact, the only text by Lucian concerning Phidias’ signing a work comes from the ‘Essays in Portraiture’ when Polystratus says ‘…the Lemnian Athena, on which Phidias deigned actually to inscribe his name’. It is unclear how the signing of a statue to a pagan goddess by a sculptor should resonate with a Christian painter signing an ‘icon’. Was El Greco ‘deigning’ and if so, how does the author know? To advance his case the author does not refer to the ‘Lucian’ in El Greco’s library at his death.

There are also a number of errors concerning El Greco’s most famous painting The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. The commission to the artist did not precede the court case as is suggested here, it was the last act in a long-running saga. Also St Stephen was not stoned to death ‘in Dalmatia’; he was stoned to death on the outskirts of Jerusalem (Acts 6-7). Presumably the confusion has arisen because the scene is depicted on the saint’s vestments.

Perhaps the key to this book is the opening sentence: ‘El Greco is probably the best-known foreign artist of his period, yet we know less about him than about many lesser Italian artists of the post-Renaissance era’. To whom is El Greco ‘foreign’? It would appear that the author is referring to German art historians and their public and there is a thread of the German art historical point of view throughout this book which culminates in the Bibliography, which lists 31 works but the majority are either by German writers or are German editions of non-German authors. Thus the book could be said to represent the state of play re El Greco in German art historical circles. If that is so, there is much still to be done.

This biography of El Greco will already be known to those who have the paperback version, published in 2004. There is one immediate difference between the new hardback and its softback antecedent and that is the title, which was formerly ‘El Greco; Domenikos Theotokopoulos 1541–1614’. Despite this both text and illustrations are identical although the colours in the plates are more accurate in this later publication.

El Greco: A Prophet of Modernism 1541–1614  by Michael Scholz-Hansel (translated by John Gabriel) is published by Taschen, 2014. 96pp., 90 colour illus (hbk). ISBN 978-3836549844