El Greco's virtuosity celebrated in New York

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The Frick Collection owns three El Greco paintings. Victoria Keller went to see them at a new show celebrating the work of 'The Greek'

To mark the 400th anniversary of the death of the artist Domenikos Theotokopoulos (1541–1614), known as El Greco, any museum that can count paintings by him in its collection is showing them or collaborating with other organizations to show them.  The Frick is doing both.

The Frick Collection has three El Greco paintings:  the focus of ‘Men in Armor’  – the portrait of Vincenzo Anastagi (c.1575), St Jerome (1590–1600) and the Purification of the Temple (c.1600).  Vincenzo Anastagi was painted in Rome, where El Greco hoped to further his career after the time he spent training in Venice.  He arrived in Rome with a good recommendation to Cardinal Farnese from his Venetian mentor Giulio Clovio.  He struggled to secure patronage until he finally left Rome for Spain in 1576.

In this period in Rome, portrait painting was considered a good way to make yourself known to the rich and powerful. El Greco’s attempt at breaking into this arena was his portrait of Vincenzo Anastagi, who had just been named sergeant major of the Vatican fortress of Castel Sant’Angelo by its governor, Jacopo Boncompagni.  The publication Men in Armor, which accompanies the exhibition, compares and contrasts the painting with the portrait of Boncompagni painted in 1574 by El Greco’s contemporary, Scipione Pulzone (1540/42–1598).  Both subjects are depicted wearing armour, with its accompanying complex range of associations with masculinity, military valour, wealth and social status. 

Jeongho Park’s catalogue essay, clearly written with no jargon, compares the painting by Pulzone (who was a much sought-after portrait painter), with its gleaming, highly polished detail epitomizing the elegant style of this period of high-society portraiture, with El Greco’s much more painterly handling, bringing into the discussion a number of portraits (nicely illustrated) of powerful men in splendid armour.  El Greco drastically abbreviates the details of Anastagi’s armour and depicts instead a blaze of light on the metal surface, which would indicate his virtuosity as a painter.  It doesn’t seem to have worked with this audience, though, because he relocated to Spain a year later.

At the beginning of November, all three of the Frick Collection’s El Greco paintings will be hung together in conjunction with ‘El Greco in New York’, opening in November at the Metropolitan Museum.

Men in Armor:  El Greco and Pulzone Face to Face by Jeongho Park is published by The Frick Collection, New York, 2014, in conjunction with the exhibition ‘Men in Armor:  El Greco and Pulzone Face to Face’, 5 August – 26 October 2014. 64 pp, 35 illus., $14.95. ISBN 978-0-912114-61-3