Opening of the Fifth Seal

Last updated
The Opening of the Fifth Seal
The Vision of Saint John MET DT1052.jpg
Artist El Greco
Year1608–1614
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensions224.8 cm× 199.4 cm(88.5 in× 78.5 in)
Location The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

The Opening of the Fifth Seal (or The Fifth Seal of the Apocalypse or The Vision of Saint John) was painted in the last years of El Greco's life for a side-altar of the church of Saint John the Baptist outside the walls of Toledo. Before 1908, El Greco's painting had been referred to as Profane Love. The scholar Manuel B. Cossio had doubts about the title and suggested the Opening of the Fifth Seal. [1] The Metropolitan Museum, where the painting is kept, comments: "the picture is unfinished and much damaged and abraded." [2]

Contents

Subject of the painting

The painting's subject is taken from the Book of Revelation 6:9–11, where the souls of martyrs cry out to God for justice upon their persecutors on Earth. The ecstatic figure of St. John dominates the canvas, while behind him naked souls writhe in a chaotic storm of emotion as they receive white robes of salvation.

The upper portion of the painting was destroyed in 1880. It is believed that the lost portion may have depicted the sacrificial lamb opening the Fifth Seal. [2] The lost upper painting may have also resembled another piece by El Greco, Concert of Angels . Many believe that the surviving portion depicts profane love, while the missing upper portion depicts divine love. [3]

The Vision of Saint John MET 56.48 1 copy.jpg The Vision of Saint John MET 56.48 2 copy.jpg

Ownership

Upon El Greco's death in 1614, the work passed to his son, Jorge Manuel Theotocópuli. [2] During the 19th century, it was owned by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, Prime Minister of Spain. Dissatisfied with the condition of the piece, he attempted to have it restored in 1880. The attempted restoration removed at least 175 centimetres (69 inches) from the top of the canvas, leaving John the Evangelist emphatically pointing nowhere.

After Cánovas' death in 1897, the painting was sold for 1,000 pesetas (US$200) to Ignacio Zuloaga, a painter who was instrumental in reviving European interest in El Greco. The painting may be seen in the background of his work Mis amigos , representing several notable members of the Generation of '98. Zuloaga is known to have shown the painting to Pablo Picasso and Rainer Maria Rilke. He declared it as possessing a "visionary power" that made it a "precursor of modernism". [4] In 1956, the Zuloaga Museum sold this artwork to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where it is on exhibit today.

Comparison with Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907, oil on canvas, 243.9 cm x 233.7 cm (96.0 in x 92.0 in), New York City, Museum of Modern Art) Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.jpg
Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907, oil on canvas, 243.9 cm × 233.7 cm (96.0 in × 92.0 in), New York City, Museum of Modern Art)

It has been suggested that the Opening of the Fifth Seal served as an inspiration for the early Cubist works of Pablo Picasso, especially Les Demoiselles d'Avignon , which mirrors the expressionistic angularity of the painting. When Picasso was working on Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, he visited his friend Zuloaga in his studio in Paris and studied El Greco's Opening of the Fifth Seal. [5] The relation between Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and the Opening of the Fifth Seal was pinpointed in the early 1980s, when the stylistic similarities and the relationship between the motifs of both works were analysed. [6] Art historian Ron Johnson was the first to focus on the relationship between the two paintings. According to John Richardson, a British art historian, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon "turns out to have a few more answers to give once we realize that the painting owes at least as much to El Greco as Cézanne". [7]

Efi Foundoulaki insists on the "activity of the triangle Picasso-Cézanne-El Greco, which is established in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon". Foundoulaki analyzes the Opening of the Fifth Seal and states that the clothed figure in the left part of the painting and the naked figures to the right showed the contradiction between profane and divine love. According to Rolf Laesse, this may have been the original inspiration of Picasso who in a preliminary drawing of the Demoiselles depicted a medical student holding a skull or a book and entering a room where there is a sailor among nude women. [8] Richardson, however, conjectures that Picasso knew the interpretation by Cossio concerning the Opening of the Fifth Seal and based his theory extensively on this conjecture. [9]

Richardson and Foundoulaki emphasize on the morphological parallels between the Opening of the Fifth Seal and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and explore the Picasso–Cézanne–El Greco relationship. [10] Foundoulaki asserts that there is a similarity of shape and that Picasso ingeniously repeated the game with the |V and the inverted triangles of El Greco, something he had already begun in The Villagers. [11] According to Foundoulaki, "the dialogue Picasso inaugurated with El Greco in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, by means of Cézanne, is carried on in Cubism". [11] Richardson sees the Apocalypse in El Greco's Opening of the Fifth Seal as the catalyst which showed Picasso how to harness the spiritual energy of a great religious artist to his own demonic ends. According to Richardson, Picasso followed this apocalyptic vision his whole life. [10]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">El Greco</span> Greek painter of the Spanish Renaissance (1541–1614)

Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos, most widely known as El Greco, was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. El Greco was a nickname, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, often adding the word Κρής, which means "Cretan".

<i>Le Déjeuner sur lherbe</i> Painting by Édouard Manet

Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe – originally titled Le Bain – is a large oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet created in 1862 and 1863. It depicts a female nude and a scantily dressed female bather on a picnic with two fully dressed men in a rural setting. Rejected by the Salon jury of 1863, Manet seized the opportunity to exhibit this and two other paintings in the 1863 Salon des Refusés, where the painting sparked public notoriety and controversy. The work is now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. A smaller, earlier version can be seen at the Courtauld Gallery, London.

<i>Les Demoiselles dAvignon</i> 1907 painting by Pablo Picasso

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is a large oil painting created in 1907 by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Picasso's Rose Period</span>

Picasso's Rose Period represents an important epoch in the life and work of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso which had a great impact on the developments of modern art. It began in 1904 at a time when Picasso settled in Montmartre at the Bateau-Lavoir among bohemian poets and writers. Following Picasso's Blue Period – which depicted themes of poverty, loneliness, and despair in somber, blue tones – Picasso's Rose Period represents more pleasant themes of clowns, harlequins and carnival performers, depicted in cheerful vivid hues of red, orange, pink and earth tones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Picasso's African Period</span> Painting series by Pablo Picasso

Picasso's African Period, which lasted from 1906 to 1909, was the period when Pablo Picasso painted in a style which was strongly influenced by African sculpture, particularly traditional African masks and art of ancient Egypt, in addition to non-African influences including Iberian sculpture, and the art of Paul Cézanne and El Greco. This proto-Cubist period following Picasso's Blue Period and Rose Period has also been called the Negro Period, or Black Period. Picasso collected and drew inspiration from African art during this period, but also for many years after it.

The Three Dancers is a painting by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, painted in June 1925. It is an oil on canvas and measures 84.8 in x 56 in.

El Greco (1541–1614) was a prominent painter, sculptor and architect active during the Spanish Renaissance. He developed into an artist so unique that he belongs to no conventional school. His dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but gained newfound appreciation in the 20th century.

<i>The Adoration of the Shepherds</i> (El Greco, Madrid) Painting by El Greco

The Adoration of the Shepherds is a painting of the traditional subject which was painted during the last year of El Greco's life. The painting is a work which the artist made to hang over his own tomb in the convent of Santo Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo. His signature, in Greek, may be seen in the lower left corner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Posthumous fame of El Greco</span>

El Greco, 1541 – April 7, 1614) was a prominent painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance, whose dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but found appreciation in the 20th century.

<i>Le bonheur de vivre</i> Painting by Henri Matisse

Le bonheur de vivre is a painting by Henri Matisse. Along with Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Le bonheur de vivre is regarded as one of the pillars of early modernism. The monumental canvas was first exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants of 1906, where its cadmium colors and spatial distortions caused a public expression of protest and outrage.

<i>The Bathers</i> (Cézanne) Painting by Paul Cézanne

The Bathers is an oil painting by French artist Paul Cézanne first exhibited in 1906. The painting, which is exhibited in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is the largest of a series of Bather paintings by Cézanne; the others are in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, National Gallery, London, the Barnes Foundation, Pennsylvania, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Occasionally referred to as the Big Bathers or Large Bathers to distinguish it from the smaller works, the painting is considered one of the masterpieces of modern art, and is often considered Cézanne's finest work.

<i>Boy Leading a Horse</i> Painting by Pablo Picasso

Jeune garçon au cheval is an oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso. The painting is housed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was painted in Picasso's Rose Period from 1905 to 1906, when he was still a struggling artist living in Paris. The painting is a study for a much larger composition that Picasso never completed.

<i>Oviri</i> 1894 ceramic sculpture by Paul Gauguin

Oviri is an 1894 ceramic sculpture by the French artist Paul Gauguin. In Tahitian mythology, Oviri was the goddess of mourning and is shown with long pale hair and wild eyes, smothering a wolf with her feet while clutching a cub in her arms. Art historians have presented multiple interpretations—usually that Gauguin intended it as an epithet to reinforce his self-image as a "civilised savage". Tahitian goddesses of her era had passed from folk memory by 1894, yet Gauguin romanticises the island's past as he reaches towards more ancient sources, including an Assyrian relief of a "master of animals" type, and Majapahit mummies. Other possible influences include preserved skulls from the Marquesas Islands, figures found at Borobudur, and a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist temple in central Java.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cubist sculpture</span> Sculptures made during the Cubist art movement

Cubist sculpture developed in parallel with Cubist painting, beginning in Paris around 1909 with its proto-Cubist phase, and evolving through the early 1920s. Just as Cubist painting, Cubist sculpture is rooted in Paul Cézanne's reduction of painted objects into component planes and geometric solids; cubes, spheres, cylinders, and cones. Presenting fragments and facets of objects that could be visually interpreted in different ways had the effect of 'revealing the structure' of the object. Cubist sculpture essentially is the dynamic rendering of three-dimensional objects in the language of non-Euclidean geometry by shifting viewpoints of volume or mass in terms of spherical, flat and hyperbolic surfaces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berggruen Museum</span> Museum in Germany

The Berggruen Museum is a collection of modern art classics in Berlin, which the collector and dealer Heinz Berggruen, in a "gesture of reconciliation", gave to his native city. The most notable artists on display include Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, Georges Braque, Paul Klee and Henri Matisse. The Berggruen Collection is part of the National Gallery of Berlin.

Picasso: Magic, Sex, & Death (2001) is a three-episode Channel 4 film documentary series on Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) presented by the artist's friend and biographer John Richardson, and directed by Christopher Bruce or British art critic Waldemar Januszczak, who was also the series director. On-screen contributors include Picasso descendants such as Paloma Picasso, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, Diana Widmaier-Picasso, Maya Picasso, and Claude Picasso; along with authorities such as Mary Ann Caws, Billy Klüver, Gérard Régnier, James Lord, Bernard Minoret, Robert Rosenblum, Linda Gasman, Marilyn McCully, David Gilmore and Gertje Utley; one former mistress ; and one flirtation.

<i>Saint Peter and Saint Paul</i> (El Greco, Barcelona) Painting by El Greco

Saint Peter and Saint Paul is a painting by the Cretan-Spanish artist El Greco. The work was completed between 1590 and 1600. It is currently on display at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, who purchased the work in 1932.

<i>Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler</i> (Picasso) 1910 painting by Pablo Picasso

Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler is an oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso in the Analytical Cubism style. It was completed in the autumn of 1910 and depicts the prominent art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, who played an important role in supporting Cubism. The painting is housed in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proto-Cubism</span> Phase in art history

Proto-Cubism is an intermediary transition phase in the history of art chronologically extending from 1906 to 1910. Evidence suggests that the production of proto-Cubist paintings resulted from a wide-ranging series of experiments, circumstances, influences and conditions, rather than from one isolated static event, trajectory, artist or discourse. With its roots stemming from at least the late 19th century, this period is characterized by a move towards the radical geometrization of form and a reduction or limitation of the color palette. It is essentially the first experimental and exploratory phase of an art movement that would become altogether more extreme, known from the spring of 1911 as Cubism.

<i>Famille dacrobates avec singe</i> Painting by Pablo Picasso

Famille d'acrobates avec singe is a 1905 painting by Pablo Picasso. It depicts a family of travelling circus performers during an intimate moment. The work was produced on cardboard using mixed media: gouache, watercolour, pastel and Indian ink. It is held by the Gothenburg Museum of Art in Gothenburg, Sweden. The work was painted at a key phase in Picasso's life, as he made the transition from an impoverished bohemian at the start of 1905 to a successful artist by the end of 1906.

References

  1. In his catalogue the painting Number 327 is called De l'Apocalypsis? (fragmento)
  2. 1 2 3 "The Vision of Saint John". www.metmuseum.org. Retrieved 2020-07-15.
  3. E. Foundoulaki, From El Greco to Cézanne, 116
  4. Michael Scholz-Hänsel. El Greco: Domenikos Theotokopoulos, 1541–1614. Taschen, 2004. ISBN   978-3-8228-3171-7. Page 90.
  5. C. B. Horsley, The Shock of the Old
  6. R. Johnson, Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon, 102–113
  7. J. Richardson, Picasso's Apocalyptic Whorehouse, 40–47
  8. R. Laesse, A Source in El Greco for Picasso's "Demoiselles d'Avignon", 133–134
  9. J. Richardson, Picasso's Apocalyptic Whorehouse, 45
  10. 1 2 J. Richardson, Picasso's Apocalyptic Whorehouse, 46
  11. 1 2 E. Foundoulaki, From El Greco to Cézanne, 102