At the present time there is a stunningly beautiful exhibition at the National Gallery of the paintings of El Greco. The exhibition will be on display until 23rd May, I went along to see it on St. Valentineís Day and it was for me a wonderful spiritual experience. Despite the crowds which thronged to see these great masterpieces I was thoroughly lost in ìwonder, love and praiseî as I gazed upon the work of an artist I have long admired. Many of the religious paintings are distinguished by three elements ? colour, light and composition. The reviewer in the Sunday Times Culture section had this to say about this stunning exhibition:-

ìEvery brush stroke El Greco adds, every composition he imagines, has a religious excitability about it, a sense of divine occasion. î

     El Greco was born on the island of Crete in the year 1541. Now Crete retained its Byzantine nature and outlook long after the fall of Constantinople. The young El Greco ? whose real name was Domenicos Theotokopoulos (with a name like that - no wonder he was known as El Greco ? The Greek!) started off his career as an icon painter.

We are fortunate to have two of his rare icons right at the beginning of the exhibition. One is the Dormition of the Virgin and the other is St. Luke painting an icon of the Virgin and Child. Sadly the representation of St. Luke is badly damaged but the icon Luke paints is complete. Yet even in this early icon El Greco struggles to break away from the iconic 2D restrictions and introduces a third dimension in the way he paints St. Luke nonchalantly resting his leg on the easel next to his 3D box of paints under the easel.

Such an informal and relaxed manner is far from the usual strict formality we find in most icons. Even at this early stage El Greco was a rebel. Now when he was born, in the mid 16th century, his home town of Iraklion on the north coast of Crete was a Venetian colony ? so El Greco would know and be influenced not only by the Orthodox Church of the East but also the Latin Church of the West. Indeed he moved for a short time to Venice where his use of colour was undoubtedly influenced by the works of Titian and Tintoretto. He then transferred to Rome - the eternal city - where the sculptures of Michelangelo had a great influence upon his style of composition. But his adopted home was Toledo in central Spain ? there he produced so many of his great spiritual masterpieces. He loved the town and glimpses of it fill the corners of many of his paintings.

Now although El Greco came into contact with Venetian, Roman and Spanish influences ? having seen the exhibition ? I would maintain that the genius of El Greco was ultimately moulded by the great tradition of Byzantine painting.  By this I mean that he followed in that great tradition in which Byzantine painters were able to interpret the spiritual reality of the universe and somehow capture this spiritual reality in paint on canvass and wood. Now there is no other artist who has had a greater influence upon modern artists that El Greco. Indeed when his Agony in the Garden, which was painted in the early 1590s, was acquired by the National Gallery, in 1919 it caused an absolute sensation and a public outcry because of its modern appearance.

The paintings of El Greco have influenced the works of such modern artists as Pablo Picasso and even Jackson Pollock (otherwise known as Jack the Dripper!). You see, El Grecoís art anticipates by three hundred years the attempts by modern artists to express, through colour, the spiritual reality behind pure form.  This comes over clearly in his portraits where he so cleverly captures the essence of the person he is painting.

The exhibition at the National includes a whole room of portraits of Spanish nobles, including his own son. On entering the room my breath was taken away when I saw the first portrait entitled ? A Lady in a Fur Wrap.  Where had I seen that face before? Of course, it was an exact likeness of the ancient funerary portraits from Fayum in Egypt ? portraits which had so influenced the very earliest Christian icons can still be seen at St. Catherineís monastery at the base of Mount Sinai. Indeed, as if to acknowledge this influence, El Greco painted a picture of the monastery sheltering under the mountain where Moses received the Law.

How iconic his portraits are not only of Spanish nobles but also of great saints ? Jerome, Mary, Peter and Paul ? and our Blessed Lord Himself ? all with their wide saucer eyes and long aquiline noses.  But El Greco not only elongates noses and faces ? he also elongates the entire human body. This strange phenomenon has led people to suggest that he suffered from a problem with his eyesight, perhaps astigmatism. I think not ? to me the more likely explanation is that El Greco elongated his figures to emphasise the supernatural and the spiritual reality beyond the physical ? almost as though his elastic figures were being stretched heavenward.

To me they are the works of a Christian mystic who brilliantly translated his visions into paint. This theory is given further credence by his imaginative use of Light ? particularly when portraying Christ ? either as an adult cleansing the temple or, as an infant in the manger. He is ìthe Light of the worldî and Godís Light radiates from the very core of His being ? illuminating all around him with its supernatural glow. One of the last great masterpieces El Greco painted was for his own tomb - The Adoration of the Shepherds ? he paints himself as one of the shepherds bathed in the light of the Christ Child ? his face illuminated by the warmth of divine glow.

El Greco always retained his Greek connections and signed his work using his Greek family name ? Theotokopoulos  - derived from the Greek word Theotokos ? meaning mother of God. There the great artist kneels in company with the humble shepherds ? in worship and adoration before the Infant Lord and His mother ? the Blessed Virgin Mary.  He died on 7th April 1614.

     A sonnet was composed by a Spanish poet to further adorn his tomb ? it reads:-

ìHere lies El Greco, Nature inherited His art, Art his Knowledge, Iris (the goddess of the rainbow) his colours, Phoebus (son of Apollo) his light, and Morpheus (god of dreams) his shadows.î

      We thank God for his greatness and for the way in which his art looked beyond the physical to the spiritual reality and allows us to this day to admire and be moved by Christ the Light of the world whose glory and divinity are captured therein.  For as the Art Critic of the Sunday Times wrote with such perception ? ìEvery brush stroke El Greco adds, every composition he imagines, has a religious excitability about it, a sense of divine occasion.î
 
 

                                 With Easter Blessings,

                                       FATHER DAVID