El Greco

Greek, 1541 - 1614

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Close to us, six people, all nude with light skin, stand or lie intertwined with snakes on a bank of rocks in this horizonal painting. Beyond them, the deep, distant landscape has a brown horse, tiny in scale, headed for a city of stone buildings beneath a vivid blue sky filled with twisting white clouds. The people’s bodies are sinewy and elongated, and their skin is painted in tones of ivory white, warmed with peach highlights and streaked with deep gray shadows. At the center, a man with a white beard and white, curly hair lies back on the charcoal-gray rock with his knees bent and his shins splayed out. With his body angled away from us to our right, he holds the body of a long, silvery-gray snake in his left fist, on our right, down by his hip. The snake curves behind the man’s body and he grips the snake behind its head. The man has high cheekbones and sunken cheeks, and rolls his eyes up and back to look at the snake, whose wide-open mouth nearly touches his hair. To our left, a cleanshaven young man stands with his body facing us but he arches back, holding an arcing snake in his hands. The young man’s right hand, on our left, bends at the elbow so he can grasp the snake’s tail and his other arm stretches straight back, holding the snake’s body as it curls around so its fangs nearly reach the young man’s side. To our right, next to the older man, a second, dark-haired young man lies on the rocks with his head toward us. His feet are on the ground, so we look onto the tops of his thighs. He lies with one hand resting on the ground, overhead. Three people seem to float, feet dangling, alongside the right edge of the painting. The person closest to us looks onto the writhing people in profile, back to us. A second person just beyond also looks to our left. A third head turns the opposite direction and looks off to our right. In the distance, the golden-brown horse is angled away from us, one front leg raised, on a path that moves from behind the rocky outcropping to the far-off town. Nestled in a shallow valley, buildings in the town are mostly painted with rose pink and red walls and smoke-gray roofs. The land dips to a deeper, green valley to our right, lining the horizon that comes two-thirds of the way up the composition. The standing people are outlined against the sapphire-blue sky and knotted, gray and white clouds.
El Greco, Laocoön, c. 1610/1614, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1946.18.1

Laocoön

El Greco · c. 1610/1614 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1946.18.1

A nude man holding a book in one hand and a rock down by his other side kneels at the opening of a rocky cave in this vertical painting. The man’s body and the shadowy cave opening nearly fill the composition. The man’s torso and limbs are elongated and sinewy, and his skin is painted in tones of ivory white and pale peach with smoky gray shadows. His body is squared to us as he turns his long face to look up and off to our left. He has dark brows over deep-set eyes, a prominent nose, hollow cheeks, and his thin lips are closed. He has short white hair and a frost-white beard. His skin pulls tightly over the tendons in his neck, across his collarbone, and over his ladder-like ribcage. He is nude except for a loosely painted, light-colored cloth across his hips. His left arm, to our right, lies along an open book, which rests against his hip or on a rock in the cave. A few touches of red line the hand that grips the rock, which he holds away from his body with his other hand. The craggy face of the cave opening is loosely painted, and the interior is swallowed in complete darkness. The man raises his face toward rays of canary yellow and cotton white against a turquoise-blue sky in the upper left corner of the canvas.
El Greco, Saint Jerome, c. 1610/1614, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1943.7.6

Saint Jerome

El Greco · c. 1610/1614 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1943.7.6

A light-skinned man wearing a voluminous, ocean-blue, hooded robe sits at a cloth-draped writing table and looks up, fingers splayed over an open book and a pen held in his other hand, in this vertical painting. The man and desk take up most of the composition, which has an arched top. The man’s shoulders and body are angled to our right, and he looks off in that direction in profile. His balding head is rimmed with white hair curving over the large ear we can see, and he has a trimmed white and gray beard and mustache. His prominent nose is pointed, and his lips are closed. Light glints off the robe he wears so it shimmers in shades of topaz, aquamarine, and midnight blue. Voluminous white sleeves emerge under the mantle and are edged with narrow lace cuffs. His left hand, to our right, rests on an open book, which is propped against one or two other tomes. Near the edge of the table, two quills stand in the corners of a lidded inkwell, and a round, silver blotter, shaped like an upside-down chalice, and a lidded silver box sit nearby. The man’s chair has a tall post next to his shoulder to our left with a teardrop-shaped, gold finial. A second post, near his wrist, is lower and topped with a gold orb. The chair is draped in the same deep, raspberry-pink of the square table at which he sits. The tablecloth is edged with a wide band of gold along the bottom, and filigree-like gold decorations line the seams or folds at the corners. Brushstrokes are visible in many areas, especially in the colorfully charged blue and pink fabric. Beyond the man, to our right, a statuette of a person wearing a long, white robe over a white dress holds a baby. The clothing is edged with gold, and she wears a sphere-like gold crown. The baby also wears white and holds up one hand. The statuette stands on a platform supported by S-shaped corbels, and could have a projecting, squared awning over the top. This area is more loosely painted so some details are difficult to make out. In the background to our left, a wooden door stands open next to a dark space just behind the man’s head, so his profile is picked out against the shadow. The floor beneath is earth brown.
El Greco, Saint Ildefonso, c. 1603/1614, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.83

Saint Ildefonso

El Greco · c. 1603/1614 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.83

An armored man on horseback hands a piece of emerald-green cloth down to the nearly nude man standing next to him in this slightly stylized, vertical painting. Both men have light skin, and they, along with the horse, nearly fill the composition. To our right, the bright white horse stands angled to our right with the front left hoof raised. It has a smoke-gray mane, and wears a black bridle. The man riding the horse has short, copper-blond hair and a long face with a pointed chin. He looks down at the ground with dark eyes under black, arched brows. He has a long, thin nose, and his small lips are closed and framed by the faint suggestion of a mustache. He wears a white ruff pleated into figure-eights over his high-necked armor, which is liberally outlined and decorated with gold against the pewter-colored plates. He grips the voluminous, green cape in one hand and holds a sword in the other, down by the leg we can see. The cleanshaven man next to him, to our left, looks off to our right in profile. He has close-cropped, dark hair and smooth skin. His lips are parted, and he tips his head slightly away from us. He holds the green cloth with the hand closer to the horse and gestures down with his other pointer finger, in front of his hip. A white cloth bandage is wrapped around one shin, and he rests his weight on the other leg. The horse and man stand on a curving spit of brown earth. A spring-green landscape dips down behind them, running low near the bottom edge of the painting. The horizon comes about a quarter of the way up the composition, and fog-gray and white clouds create thin screens across the topaz-blue sky. The loose brushstrokes are visible in some areas, especially in the landscape and clothing. The artist signed his name in Greek near the lower right corner.
El Greco, Saint Martin and the Beggar, 1597/1599, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.25

Saint Martin and the Beggar

El Greco · 1597/1599 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.25

A woman and the baby she holds float in a cloud flanked by two winged angels, as two women stand below in this tall, vertical painting. All the people have pale skin shaded with smoke gray, and their necks, fingers, and limbs are elongated. At the top center of the painting Mary holds Jesus on her lap. Jesus is nude except for a white cloth wrapped around his middle. His body faces us as he looks off to our left. He has blond, curly hair and the pudgy features of a baby. He grasps the forefinger of Mary’s right hand, to our left, and his other hand rests by his side. Mary looks down at the baby with her head tilted to our right. One hand reaches around Jesus’s torso and the other arm is lifted, so he can hold her finger. She wears a white veil draped over chestnut-brown hair and a sapphire-blue cloak over a voluminous, rose-pink dress. A winged angel looks on to each side of this pair. Both angels have blond hair and delicate features. The angel to our left wears a parakeet-green robe and has ice-blue wings. That angel crosses arms over the chest, as the angel to our right holds hands together in prayer. The second angel wears shell white and has silvery-gray wings. Both are seen from the chest up from behind puffy, pale blue clouds. Above the angels, rows of ghostly winged baby heads are loosely painted with tones of ivory white and slate gray. They frame a golden glow that surrounds Mary’s head. At Mary’s feet are five more winged baby heads. In the bottom third of the painting, two women stand with their bodies facing inward, toward each other. They both have honey-brown hair, snub noses, and pointed chins. The woman to our left looks up at Mary with large, glistening eyes, her pale pink lips parted. She wears a canary-yellow robe over a topaz-blue, long-sleeved garment. One hand curves over the head of a lion standing in front of her, holding one end of a long palm frond that rests on her right shoulder, closer to us. Two curling lines on the lion’s forehead are the cursive Greek letters for Delta and Theta, which are the artist’s initials. The woman to our right looks down so we see her in profile. A gossamer-white veil covers her hair and drapes across her chest. She is enveloped in a shimmering, flame-red cloak. A white lamb lies across the woman’s left forearm, closer to us, and the woman holds her other hand up to her chest.
El Greco, Madonna and Child with Saint Martina and Saint Agnes, 1597/1599, oil on canvas, wooden strip added at bottom, Widener Collection, 1942.9.26

Madonna and Child with Saint Martina and Saint Agnes

El Greco · 1597/1599 · oil on canvas, wooden strip added at bottom ·  Accession ID  1942.9.26

A young woman sitting with a nude infant lying in her lap is flanked on either side by an older woman to our left and an elderly man with a nude young boy to our right in this vertical painting. They all have pale skin tinged with blue. At the center, the young woman, Mary, is draped in a cobalt-blue mantle that partially covers her head and falls to her shoulders to wrap around a dusky rose-pink gown. The mantle is pushed back from one side of her head, revealing dark brown hair. Her right arm embraces the shoulders of the old woman standing next to her, to our left, who leans toward Mary. A tangerine-orange cloak wraps around the older woman and her hair is covered by a white cowl. Both women have long faces and noses with deep set eyes under thick arched brows, and they gaze down at the infant. The mostly bald, pudgy baby lies across a white piece of fabric, two corners of which are held up by the older woman. Another young boy stands alongside Mary to our right. He faces us, holding a basket or glass bowl containing oval-shaped caramel-brown objects the size of figs in one hand. His elongated head is crowned with tawny brown hair, and his face turns away from the infant to gaze off to our right. One finger of his left hand, on our right, rests alongside his rose-red lips. The elderly man stands behind him, leaning over Mary’s shoulder to look at the older woman. We see him from the waist up with a golden-yellow cloak layered over an olive-green vest, and the arm we see is clad in a white sleeve. The group takes up most of the height of the composition and are crowded together against an azure-blue sky swirling with thin gray and white clouds. The scene is painted largely with long strokes of saturated color. The dark gray ground below is painted with sketchy strokes of white, blue, and pink.
El Greco, The Holy Family with Saint Anne and the Infant John the Baptist, c. 1595/1600, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1959.9.4

The Holy Family with Saint Anne and the Infant John the Baptist

El Greco · c. 1595/1600 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1959.9.4

A long haired, bearded man holds a whip and stands in the middle of a crowd of about two dozen people who stand or twist, all in a building with columns and arches in this horizontal painting. Brushstrokes are visible in some areas, especially in the clothing and sky seen through one arch. All the men have light skin with a greenish cast while the women and children have smooth, pale skin. They wear dresses and robes in shades of rose pink, lapis blue, emerald green, or brown. The man at the center, Jesus, stands facing us with his right knee bent and his weight shifted onto his other leg. He holds a short, four-tailed whip in his right hand high and stretched across his body. He tilts his head to our left and looks down in that direction at the person next to him. Jesus has brown hair and wears a dark pink robe under a bright blue cloth that drapes over one shoulder and across the other hip. To our left, two men with bare torsos and raised arms lean away from Jesus. The man closest to him faces away from us as he bends over at the waist and looks over his shoulder at Jesus. That man wears a burnt orange cloth wrapped around his hips over a dark brown skirt, perhaps of a toga. Behind this pair are about a dozen other people and below them, two bare-breasted women recline on steps, their bodies angled to our right. One woman throws her head back against her raised arm, her mouth open and brow gathered. The other woman looks up at Jesus, holding one hand to her bare breast, her lips closed. She rests her right hand, to our left, on a cage holding five white birds on the ground next to her. Next to Jesus, on our right, a wrinkled, balding, gray-haired and bearded man sits on the steps so his knees come toward us. His torso twists to our left so he can rest his chin in his hand as he looks up at Jesus. That elbow and his other hand rest on the handle of a basket filled with gold coins. There are several animals around this man, including two black and white rabbits at his feet, nosing silver objects spilling from a pouch. Nearby, a gray bird sits on the step, and a white lamb with its feet tied to a stick lies belly up next to a wooden box. Behind the man is a crowd of at least eight people, looking at Jesus or each other. A bare-breasted woman guides a naked, toddler-aged child away from this group. A stick balanced across the woman’s far shoulder has a chicken hanging from the front end and a basket hanging behind. Another child lies back on the steps near the right edge of the painting. Next to that child, an open book and a loaf of bread lie beneath a table covered with an orange and brown patterned cloth. The scene takes place in a structure with columns and arched openings. Two people wearing blue robes hustle under one arched opening to our right, which leads back to a shadowed space lit with a chandelier. Blue sky and gray and white clouds are visible through the arch over Jesus, where there are also more sand-brown buildings in the distance. There are statues high up on ledges on either side of that opening. The artist signed the work in white paint in the lower left to the right of the bird cage in Greek letters.
El Greco, Christ Cleansing the Temple, probably before 1570, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1957.14.4

Christ Cleansing the Temple

El Greco · probably before 1570 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1957.14.4

El Greco, Pietà, c. 1570, pen and brown ink and brown wash over black chalk on laid paper, Gift of David H. McDonnell, 2016.54.1

Pietà

El Greco · c. 1570 · pen and brown ink and brown wash over black chalk on laid paper ·  Accession ID  2016.54.1

Timothy Cole, Fray Feliz Ortensio Palaucino, 1930, wood engraving, Rosenwald Collection, 1980.45.317

Fray Feliz Ortensio Palaucino

Timothy Cole · 1930 · wood engraving ·  Accession ID  1980.45.317

A nearly nude man with peachy skin stands next to and looks up at a man with ashen, ivory-colored skin, wearing armor and riding a bright white horse in this vertical painting. The horizon line comes less than a quarter of the way up the composition, and the sky behind the men and horse is vivid, aqua blue with a few silvery-gray and pale, yellow clouds floating along the top edge of the composition. The painting is created with long, blended brushstrokes, and the limbs and features of the two men and horse are elongated and have delicate, dark outlines. The horse’s body is angled to our right but it looks at us from the corners of its dark eyes. One front leg is raised. The rider looks down toward the man on foot at his side, to our left. The rider has dark, arched eyebrows, a long, straight nose, a pointed chin, and short, copper-orange hair. Wide ruffs pleated into figure-eights encircle his neck and wrists. His chest and arms are covered with plates of steel-gray armor edged and decorated with gold bands and medallions. He wears crimson-red pantaloons and stockings with mustard-yellow boots. With his right hand, to our left, he holds the gold hilt of a long, thin sword along the horse’s body. With his other hand, he holds a swath of lime-green fabric, which drapes down the side of the horse and across the hips of the man standing next to the rider. The sheen of the fabric is suggested with canary-yellow highlights where it catches the light. The standing man has short, dark brown hair and eyebrows. He looks to our right in profile, toward the rider, with pink lips parted. He holds the green fabric with his left hand, to our right, and he has a bandage around his leg near his right ankle. The horse and man stand on a spit of dark brown land, with a landscape of trees, buildings, and mountains deep in the distance beyond.
Greek 16th Century, Saint Martin and the Beggar, 1600/1614, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.84

Saint Martin and the Beggar

Greek 16th Century · 1600/1614 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.84

Bibliography

1908

  • Cossío, Manuel B. El Greco. Madrid, 1908. (Rev. ed., Natalia Cossío Jímenez, ed. Barcelona, 1972).

1910

  • San Román y Fernández, Francisco de Borja. El Greco en Toledo. Madrid, 1910.

1962

  • Wethey, Harold E. El Greco and His School. 2 vols. Princeton, 1962 (Spanish ed., Madrid, 1967).

1981

  • Marías, Fernando, and Agustín Bustamente García. Las ideas artísticas de El Greco. Madrid, 1981.

1982

  • El Greco of Toledo. Exh. cat. The Toledo [Ohio] Museum of Art; Prado, Madrid; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. Boston, 1982-1983.

1986

  • Mann, Richard G. El Greco and His Patrons. Cambridge, 1986.

1990

  • Brown, Jonathan, and Richard G. Mann. Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1990: 42-43.