John Papaspanos

Crete: A “dark island in the Hellenic Sea,”1 “still medieval in its

culture and linked with the past,”2 is the birthplace of Dominikos

Theotokopoulos—better known to the world as the enigmatic El Greco.

In the mid-16th century Crete was a torchbearer of the fallen Byzantium

—upholding the aesthetic values that fostered the spirituality of the

Eastern Church for centuries. Although Crete was “equally remote

from Europe, Africa, and Asia,” and impervious to the innovations of

the Renaissance, “Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, colonists from

Byzantium and Palestine, Saracens and Crusaders from all lands

touched at this island…and brought with them their own art.” 3 This

influx of creativity in artistic expression was the first foundation of

sources behind El Greco’s art.

When referring to the concept of art in the 16th century, there is

little leeway in regards to its purpose. The common phrase “art for

art’s sake” is far beyond the horizon. Art was sacred—a gift from God

to Man to spread the Word. Let it be didactic or narrative, as long as

the work of art inspired piety within the observer. As a young boy, El

Greco became acquainted with this rigid structure as he trained to be

an iconographer. This early acquirement of the hieratic forms found in

iconography became deeply rooted in his memory. To paint an icon

one must be in a specific state of religious fervor. Enclosed in a room

alone, El Greco would meditate. Focusing his mind on a certain

religious theme—perhaps the Biblical story of Christ healing the blind

man or the moment before Christ was disrobed at Golgotha, El Greco

would harmonize his eye, mind, and hand to reflect his inner vision.
After several years of training, at the age of twenty-five, El Greco left

his native island for the vibrant city of Venice to further his prowess as

a painter. Coincidentally, El Greco arrived during the apogee of

Venetian painting. The masters Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese

resided in the city with a reputation already well-renowned throughout

Europe. El Greco sat at the feet of Titian, the master of color, and even

helped him in several of his later commissions. Even so, all of the

Venetian talents left impressions upon the style and technique of El

Greco. Even more so, El Greco probably recalled his days in Venice

like a vivid dream:

Exploring the canals, crossing the Rialto Bridge, and conversing

at St. Mark’s Square, El Greco’s perspective was forever affected. At

this time, the beginnings of El Greco, the “thinking artist,” emerged as

a spurt of curiosity at first, but slowly became almost like an

addiction.4 Theology and humanism were his beloved sciences and

once he tasted their effects on the canvas, he became forever

insatiable for knowledge.

In 1570, Julio Clovio, the ‘Greek’ Croatian miniature-painter wrote

to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in Rome extolling one of El Greco’s

portraits and begged the cardinal to reserve a room for the young

painter in the royal palace.5 Within the palace, the Farnese Library was

among the most popular rooms. Often during the day, this setting was

full of engaging conversations among the intellectuals living in the

palace, which included a circle of Spanish humanists. El Greco’s stay

at Rome culminated to a critical point when “the tremendous shadow

of Michelangelo started to hang heavy over El Greco…” Perhaps El

Greco’s spirited reaction against the deceased Michelangelo’s heavy

influence helped the young artist find himself.6

The Italian Renaissance spurred a new way of capturing “the

real” with naturalism and realism. In Rome, El Greco became intimate

with this new way of “seeing” the world and consequently…was in

“constant astonishment before the Italian miracle.7” Since, the

dramatic manner of Michelangelo did not comply with El Greco’s inner

angst, the Byzantine8 emotionally rejected Michelangelo as an artist.9

This frustration became one of the reasons El Greco departed from

Italy. At last, his destiny would eventually lead him to the quaint

quarters of “a living tradition that nourished the deepest aspirations of

his soul,”10 the former capital of the Spanish Empire—Toledo.

In his personal odyssey to attain artistic fruition, El Greco lived in

three different countries, spoke three different languages, and mingled

in three different cultures whose peculiarities mixed within his

subconscious.11 From iconography (Crete—Byzantine influence), to

Mannerism (Venice—Titian), to the Renaissance ideal (Rome—Counter

Reformation), and finally to the mystical representation (Toledo—

Spanish spirit)—El Greco underwent an arduous journey to express

spiritual truth in his art. His final destination was to be Toledo—the

land of spiritual and artistic liberty which allowed El Greco’s

uniqueness to flourish. If El Greco chose to remain in Italy, the

centuries of tradition would eventually seep into the artist and damper

the upswing of his own originality.12 To capture the pure essence of his

own spirituality, without adhering to any formulated rules, El Greco

found refuge in Toledo (the ecclesiastical center of Spain). At this

stage of his career, El Greco was most vigorous in his attempt to

create artwork that inspired meditation upon the observer. In order to

succeed in this endeavor, El Greco reminisced his childhood years on

Crete and utilized the hieratic forms and vision of the Byzantine icons

he knew so well. The lessons El Greco absorbed in Italy were fresh and

recent, but beneath the “veneer of Italianism which covered his

primitive undercurrents… there was an unmistakable ‘essence of

Byzantium,’ like an underground infiltration, soaking through the whole

substructure of his art.”13 When he settled in Toledo, “his genius burst

to the surface.”14

In this paper, I will argue that the explanation behind El Greco’s

genius in his composition The Burial of the Count of Orgaz can be

explained by his synthesis of Neo-Platonist concepts imposed on

Byzantine prototypes with the remnants of Mannerist forms as an aid

to the contemplation of God.

The origins of El Greco’s philosophical dispositions are rooted in

two central sources: His heritage and his library.

His ancestors migrated from Constantinople to Candia, Crete in

the 14th century. As landowners, the Theotokopoulos family was fairly

well-to-do.15 El Greco was given a thorough schooling in Greek

language and letters, “a study which he was to cultivate throughout his

life.”16 Possibly as El Greco grew older, his talents as an artist were

recognized and his father wisely sent him to the monastery of Saint

Catherine, the most important school of painting on the island.17 Still

immersed in the framework of the Middle Ages, the only places of

learning and artistic training in Crete were the monasteries. El Greco

joined the collection of over two-hundred painters on the island which

were organized in guilds based on the Italian model. Aside from this
knowledge, little can be known from El Greco’s early years. Due to the

limited number of documents that have survived—many debates have

arisen among scholars regarding his religious affinity and the reason

behind his flight to Venice. The records show El Greco was a devout

Catholic towards the end of his life; however, was he a convert or was

he born a Catholic? Historians such as Nikolaos Panayotakis, Pandelis

Prevelakis and Maria Constantoudaki insist that El Greco's family and

ancestors were Greek Orthodox. Furthermore, one of his uncles was an

Orthodox priest, and “his name is not mentioned in the Catholic

archival baptismal records on Crete.”18 Absolutely, his birth rite is

mysterious—but nevertheless, whether El Greco was born a Roman

Catholic or Greek Orthodox, within three years, he left the island as a

convert. In order to successfully settle in the cultural climate of

Venice, that conversion was necessary, but El Greco still remained

loyal to his upbringing in the Orthodox tradition.

Why leave Crete? What was the reason for his departure? Some

scholars speculate that the Turkish advancement was imminent and

the Cretans grew fearful of an invasion. Likewise, the coastal raids

encouraged an exodus from the island. In addition, as an upcoming

painter, El Greco realized the future of art was to be found in the

Western elements (the ancient craft of iconography was losing its

prominence). Instead of Sailing to Byzantium19—the past and the old

ways—El Greco traveled west to Italy—towards the prospects of a new

expression.

In Venice, El Greco found familiarity among the company of

‘Grechi’ living in the city—coming from all the Venetian territories in

the Eastern Mediterranean. Among all the Greco-Venetian

madonnari20 working in the city, Theotokopoulos was one of thousands

of Greeks. This makes it “difficult to trace reference to one

individual21” so much of El Greco’s experience in Venice is extracted

from the observation of his works and the evident evolution of his

technique and the modification of his style. Initially, his palette was

the first aspect of his painting to undergo change. Under the guidance

of the greatest living artist after his peer Michelangelo died at Rome in

1564, was Titian the ‘Master of Color’.22 The bright hues of blue and
red that dazzle his later works find their origin in Titian’s studio.

Another prominent painter El Greco admired was Tintoretto. Tintoretto

was among the best painters of the new movement in art called

Mannerism.23 Ever since the High Renaissance and the death of the

Great Masters (Michelangelo, Donatello, etc.), art could not ascend any

higher. Reaching the acme of excellence in harmony and balance, the

upcoming generation of artists failed to emulate their teachers. For

this reason, (along with others, specifically the sack of Rome in 1527)

artists tweaked the Renaissance ideal to express an anti-classical

template for religious themes. This style accentuates the personal

reaction to a certain painting and not the objective representation of

its forms. The artistic movement known as Mannerism accentuated

elongated forms, exaggerated, out-of-balance poses, manipulated

irrational space, and unnatural lighting.24 For this reason, the Catholic

Church reacted proactively against this brief burst of expression in its

defense against Protestantism. The ideals of the High Renaissance

were re-established to emphasize the didactic purpose of art—meant

to inspire piety within the observer. Repelling the secular themes of

Northern Europe, the Catholic Church imposed specific “guidelines for

religious art, asking for greater clarity, realism, emotional drama,

dogmatic instruction, and the avoidance of genital nudity.”25

Aside from the chasm forming between the advent of Mannerism

and the return to naturalism in the form of the Baroque period, the

greater agona that affected El Greco raged internally—within the world

of his mind. What his eyes saw disagreed with what his mind

envisioned.

According to El Greco’s sense, the Renaissance was aloof and not

in tune with the human psyche. The collective mind of the Byzantines

was rich in the cultural inheritance of its predecessors—the ancient

Greeks. “As a culture, Byzantium is characterized by its passionate

loyalty to the prototype of its Hellenic past, on all levels of its

behavior. The “vision of Man’s centrality and supremacy was the

Greek idea that, like geometry’s most ideal figure, the Circle, Man was

perfect in form.26” This ideology saturated both Greek architecture and

art alike. The ancient temples are still standing in testimony. The

precise location of the Parthenon atop the Acropolis or the Temple of

Poseidon adjacent to the sea, their sacred structures “absorbed all that

in the visible world around it would complete it; skies, waters, and

summits.”27 These structures became solid, static entities in the midst

of change and chaos. The order, harmony, and balance of a focal point

with the backdrop of secondary constituents (the ever-changing sea

and sky)—this spatial structure became the essence of Byzantine

iconography.

On the contrary, the character of the Renaissance can be

explained by its principle of “mobile interplay of figure and milieu,

particularly evident in the Mannerist art of the 16th century.”28 At the

peak of the Renaissance, the conflict between the Hellenic (Byzantine)

elements and the medieval fundamentals29 was the stimulus for all the

“extraordinary complexity of the Renaissance art formula.”30

These observations are limited insofar as the complete

philosophical explanation behind the art of El Greco is concerned. The

impulses driving the artists to choose between static or mobile figures

and between complimentary or conflicting surroundings are subliminal

and passed on through a common culture. For a man skilled in the

visual arts, encapsulating such a trend in words seems to be futile.

Among all the treatises El Greco wrote throughout his life, (on

architecture, painting, philosophy, etc.) not one document has survived

the ages. In contrast, a multitude of El Greco’s paintings are in perfect

condition, hanging on the walls of the Sacristy of the Cathedral in

Toledo, his home in Toledo, the Prado, the Lourve, and in personal

collections all over the world. If one is to paint from a certain

perspective—why utter words to people or paper when one can simply

show them? For people who can’t paint or sculpt, philosophical writing

is secondarily the best means of expression.

El Greco was fortunate enough to be skilled both as an artist and

a scholar. In his personal library, El Greco found inspiration for his art.

One obvious example was the effects of one of the most influential

Neo-Platonist sources, to which the spiritual writers constantly referred

—Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. In his treatise called Celestial

Hierarchy, Pseudo-Dionysius interpreted the Divine in terms of light

metaphysics.31 In summation, the Divine light emanates from its

source, the Almighty Creator, down the hierarchy of angels until it

reaches the intellect of man. As the light perculates downwards, it

inspires the mind of man to contemplate upon the world of nature.

Finally, with the angels’ aid, Man can use the physical world as a

stepping stone to the Divine.32

This spiritual and intellectual model is the theoretical substance.

To put this abstract idea into practice, one must read and understand

the ideas of the Celestial Hierarchy, and then one must go further and

apply them in visual expression. What is better—something to exist in

the mind alone, or in the mind and reality? El Greco’s painting,

Allegory of the Holy League best displays this blinding luminosity and

the hierarchy of spiritual beings. The letters IHS representing the

name of Christ (Iesous Christos) are inferno-white and are bathing the choir of angels

in a brilliant yellow light. The mortals are kneeling in awe with arms crossed in the

foreground. As Pseudo-Dionysius described, God is centered at the top of the canvas,

pouring light down to the congregated angels, which in turn relay this good and beautiful

light to the men living in the earthly realm below the heavens.

This important philosophical treatise goes on to further influence El Greco’s

imagination. Pseudo-Dionysius’s favorite symbol for angels was uplifting, enkindling its

own light, uncontrollably flying upwards without diminishing its all blessed self-giving—

the flames of fire.33 The key to unlock the secrets of El Greco’s brush strokes is the

image of fire.

Another book on El Greco’s shelf was the Trattato dell’ arte della pittura by

Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo. According to the chapter on proportion, Lomazzo states,

“For the greatest grace and life, that a picture can have, is, that is expresse ‘Motion’:
which the Painters call the ‘spirite’ of a picture.”34

What better form can fit that spirit than fire? Lomazzo goes on

to explain fire is cone-shaped and its point can split the air so it may

ascend to its proper place. This stratification of air is reminiscent of

the ancient concept of the ‘spheres’ and the four elements. Fire is

passionate, always ascending, pure, and luminous. The energy

created by El Greco’s brush strokes on the canvas radiate fiery visions

for the observer—to better spark contemplative action. With full

“liberty of contour—sketchy, rapid, dramatic, a contour blurred here,

accentuated there—which in his passionate application, made the new-

comer El Greco so different from all others.”35 El Greco is singular in

his ability to depict a dynamic happening and bring the observer to

martyrdom by witnessing a miracle. The image demands attention,

and there is no other option, but to meditate. “The paintings of El

Greco raise the soul of man heavenwards with its movement of

spirit.”36

El Greco’s earliest “interpretation of the destiny of man

according to Neo-Platonic concepts of cosmic hierarchy, illumination,

and the ascent of the soul”37 is his most famous composition—the

Burial of the Count of Orgaz. This painting unifies the themes from the

preceding discussion: Byzantine prototype, Neo-Platonic concepts, and

traces of Mannerist elements.

The architecture of the painting is reminiscent of the famous

Byzantine icon Dormitions. The “limp curve of the Count’s body in

front of the rigid frieze of onlookers, strikes the same immemorial

rhythm set by the dead Virgin in front of the apostles.”38 The

triangular configuration of the three celestial figures—Jesus Christ, St.

John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary are reflective of the Orthodox

trinity. This portion of the painting exhibits the heaviest influence of

Mannerism with the elongation of the figures and the irregular hand

gestures. With small heads and serpentine bodies, the holiest celestial
beings embody the flame motif of Pseudo-Dionysius. To the left hand

of Christ, a congregation of saints is gazing at the Pantocrator as he

sends down St. Stephen and St. Augustine to help lower Orgaz’ body

into the ground. However, disregarding the sight of the saints’

appearance, the nobility and clergy present at the funeral are focused

on the miracle happening above their heads. Their eyes are looking

upwards; towards the sight of the angel carrying the soul of Count

Orgaz to heaven. El Greco created the illusion of complete silence with

the expression of the figures’ faces. Every celestial being is

anticipating a new saint into paradise (Orgaz)—Christ is gesturing to

Saint Peter to open the gates.

The synthesis is clearly divided between the heavenly sphere

and the earthly realm. “The unreality of the heavenly scene is

obvious, but so is its perfect spiritual coherence in conjunction with the

rest of the picture.”39 Far from describing an actual observation of the

miracle, this painting was not meant to be realistic. The omniscient

point of view the observer sees the miracle is the “eye of the soul”

experiencing the soul of Orgaz ascending through the vortex of clouds

to meet Christ face-to-face. There is neither spatial complexity nor

three dimensions. Even the notion of time does not apply—“like salt

pillars, all the figures and torch-flames and cloud-shapes seem to

congeal in one everlasting moment.”40

In summation, the cultural context in which El Greco was raised

was one of the most dominant influences on his art. Other sources of

inspiration were his experiences in Italy (Mannerism) and most notably

—his vast library (Neo-Platonism). Once he arrived at Toledo, he

mustered all his skills in order to paint one of the most unique
compositions in the history of art, The Burial of Count Orgaz. This

masterpiece brought together El Greco’s Byzantine roots, his Neo-

Platonist concepts, and his lessons in Mannerist figures to create the

painting that El Greco once described as, “My most sublime work.”41

1
Goldsheider pg. 5
2
Troutman pg. 7
3
Goldsheider pg. 5
4
Goldsheider pg. 12
5
Goldsheider pg. 6
6
Guinard pg. 54
7
Bronstein pg.21
8
El Greco, Cretan or the Byzantine are epithets used interchangeably.
9
“Michelangelo was a good man, but he could not paint”
(El Greco—recorded by Pacheco ‘Arte de la Pintura’ 1611)
10
Guinard pg. 59
11
Guinard pg. 39
12
Guinard pg. 59
13
Guinard pg. 47
14
Guinard pg. 59
15
Guinard pg. 13
16
Troutman pg. 7
17
Troutman pg. 7
18
M. Lambraki-Plaka, El Greco—The Greek, 40–41
19
Contrary to Yeats’ first line in the well-known poem, Sailing to Byzantium…
“THAT is no country for old men.”
20
Artists who paint the Madonna (The Byzantine-style icons of the Virgin Mary were in
vogue at the time)
21
Puppi pg. 8
22
Puppi pg. 8
23
Manniera—manner or style
24
http://www.artmovements.co.uk/mannerism.htm
25
Baldwin
26
Bronstein pg. 16
27
Bronstein pg. 16
28
Bronstein pg. 17
29
In Romanesque art, the figure becomes identified with its surrounding space.
30
Bronstein pg. 17
31
Davies pg. 5
32
Davies pg. 5
33
Davies pg. 5
34
Davies pg. 6
35
Bronstein pg. 15
36
Davies pg. 6
37
38
Guinard pg. 44
39
Guinard pg. 96
40
Goldsheider pg. 13
41
Bronstein pg. 46