El Greco Essays (1715 words) - Visual Arts, Art History,

El Greco The Agony In the Garden, a mannerist style of art by EL Greco, proclaims a sense of spiritual power of religious faith which accomplishes El Greco's aim to move his audience. El Greco was born on the island of Crete and lived from 1541 to 1614. He represented the most characteristic figure of Spanish Mannerism. El Greco was influenced by and became acquainted with the art of Titian and Jacopo Bassano in Venice where he studied in 1566. In addition to visiting Italy, El Greco made his way to Rome, Parma and probably Florence. On his travels he became more familiar with the work of Parmigianino and the work of Correggio. In El Greco's use of form can be seen Florentine Mannerism. Venetian Mannerism can be seen in the peculiar brilliance of his coloring. The plans for the construction of the Escurial and the discussion of works of art being selected by Philip II, probably attracted El Greco to Spain. However, El Greco failed to satisfy the Italianate tastes of the King. He lived virtually uninterruptedly in Toledo from 1575 on. In Toledo he formed friendships with men of advanced beliefs and humanist interests. The monastic, from which his prime commitment came, were glad to decorate their churches and cloisters with his elevated visionary paintings. El Greco paintings bordered on a supernatural world of creative fantasy. Most of his paintings survive in a number of copies painted in his own hand. El Greco's studio which employed a large number of assistants also produced many contrasts of his works. People were very curious about his paintings with their unusual setting and flickering impressiveness. In The Agony In The Garden there are two planes displayed in the art work that are disconnected by a few bare branches that contain fugitive leaves. The upper plane consists of the vision of Christ set against a large rock with a few trees. Christ is kneeling in a reddish-purple robe, with hands stretched out toward the ground. He turns toward the floating angel who is painted in pearly greys. Behind the angel, on the left are spinning clouds. Preceding from an outline of an imaginary town, on the right, are soldiers carrying flags. The inconceivable impression of the picture is due to the contrast of not only passionate and cerebral but in terms of colour- between the two planes and their figural content as well. This painting is the last date of the El Greco pictures in Budapest and is from the last period of the artists life. The Biblical occurrence illustrated is standardized on two levels, one above the other. The group of the three sleeping apostles fill the lower plane. We find comparable groups of apostles in pictures by Giovanni Bellini. El Greco returns to Quattrocento etiquette, especially in the manner in which the sleeping gray-haired apostle bends his arm around his head. Of the abundant versions of this painting in the artist's own hand there is a smaller copy in the Museum at Lille, and other variants are to be found in the Episcopal palace in the Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires. The variant most similarly related to the painting in Budapest is the larger-scale version in the Church of Santa Maria at Andujar which displays other works of mannerist art. The mannerist style thrived at the same time as High Renaissance and Baroque art. Mannerism, like many other names attached to so many other periods of art, was a name conceived in disdain and impudence. Maniera, meaning maner, was correlated with the artist who worked in the manner of someone else. Like an imitator who adapted and sometimes perfected the forms of another. However, there are characteristics of the Mannerist style which disconnected it from the period of the High Renaissance as well as the distinguishing it from the emerging Baroque. A number of crucial artist of Mannerism have displayed meaningful works. Only in the last ninety years has Mannerism come to be respected as an independent style in the history of art. Before representatives of the style were classified under either the Renaissance or the Baroque. Some of the most excellent Mannerist were banned from the gallery walls and the church altars. However, they produced works of great emotional impact. Probably the findings of El Greco early in this century provided for the re-judgment of Mannerism as a style in its own right. Mannerism became a style bleeding with imaginative content which had deliberately broken with reality,