View of Toledo | |
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Spanish: Vista de Toledo | |
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Artist | El Greco |
Year | 1596–1600 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Movement | Mannerism |
Dimensions | 121.3 cm× 108.6 cm(47.8 in× 42.8 in) |
Location | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City |
View of Toledo (original title Vista de Toledo), is one of the two surviving landscapes painted by El Greco, along with View and Plan of Toledo . View of Toledo is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
View of Toledo is among the best known depictions of the sky in Western art, along with Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night and the landscapes of J. M. W. Turner and Claude Monet. Art historian Keith Christiansen included View of Toledo among the artist's most ambitious masterpieces, describing it as one of Western art's most celebrated landscapes. [1]
Art historians, specifically Harold Wethey, have debated the exact dating of View of Toledo. There was some debate among art historians due to early literature that wrote about El Greco. The early literature that Walter Liedtke mentions in "Three Paintings by El Greco," suggests that the View of Toledo was painted after 1600 and shortly before El Greco died in 1614. However, art historian Harold Wethey believes it was painted between 1595 and 1600 because of the similarities to El Greco's other piece, Saint Joseph and the Christ Child. Wethey backs up this claim because Saint Joseph and the Christ Child was completed between 1597 and 1599. Wethey also provides more evidence by pointing out the same techniques used in the background of Saint Joseph and the Christ Child that one can see in View of Toledo. [2]
Landscape paintings were rare among Spanish paintings of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Due to landscape paintings being so rare, some speculate that View of Toledo is actually from a larger painting. However, there has been no valid proof or confirmation to whether that is the case. [3] The Council of Trent's ban against landscape painting [ citation needed ] lends credence to the idea that this work may stand as the first Spanish landscape painting of its time.
View of Toledo is a landscape portrait. The painting is vibrant with blues, black, white, and vivid greens. It is made up of all earth tones. Most notable is the distinct color contrast between the darkness of the skies above and the vibrance of green in the hills below. View of Toledo shows viewers an image of darkness, or moodiness that is present in Toledo. Observers can see that the sky grows exceptionally dark near the city. El Greco creates a palette full of dramatic colors. While contemplating View of Toledo, people can see the contrast from light to dark. There are rolling hills depicted with Toledo at the top. The city of Toledo is very grey in contrast to the vibrant green of the hills. On the opposite end the city itself is also a light contrast to the dark color of the sky. El Greco uses pure colors to his advantage. [4] The location of the Castle of San Servando, on the left, is accurately depicted. However, many other landmarks that are clearly referring to Toledo are not in the correct location that is true to the city. Walter Liedtke believes this is because El Greco painted the View of Toledo more as a future or a hope to what it would look like. [2] Art historians, Jonathon Brown and Richard Kagan, have also hinted to the theory that El Greco painted the city of Toledo in an alternate way to fit his imagination or ideal version of Toledo. [5]
El Greco has a unique style with influences from Italian artists as well as Spanish and Greek. Throughout his painting career, El Greco changed his style based upon the places he lived. However, he almost always painted with influence from his Cretan or Greek roots. He often wrote in Greek and used the Greek alphabet instead of the Latin alphabet. View of Toledo carries this tradition of his Greek roots through his signature. He always signed his art with his real name, Domenikos Theotokopoulos. [6] El Greco's signature appears in the lower-right corner. El Greco's style was known to be more uneven. [7] That uneven detail that is normally found in his art is in his line work and in the physical location of Toledo in the painting. While influenced by the Mannerist style, El Greco's expressive handling of color and form is without parallel in the history of art. The Welsh art historian David Davies asserts that the philosophies of Platonism and ancient Neo-Platonism, the works of Plotinus and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, the texts of the Church fathers and the liturgy offer the keys to the understanding of El Greco's style. [8] Summarizing the ensuing scholarly debate on this issue, José Álvarez Lopera, curator at the Museo del Prado, Madrid, concludes that the presence of "Byzantine memories" is obvious in El Greco's mature works, though there are still some obscure issues concerning his Byzantine origins needing further illumination. [8]
The city of Toledo is at the very top of the hill in View of Toledo. Art historian, Walter Liedtke, speculates that El Greco wanted to emphasize the greatness of Toledo. Due to Toledo sitting at the top, it symbolized the city's position being near heaven, yet still at the top of hill making it of earthly possession. Using medieval tradition, El Greco incorporated landmarks such as the cathedral and the Alcázar which were positioned in a manner where he could create his version of Toledo, "a city of the spirit". [8] Toledo is the highest point it could be without being unnatural or in the sky, almost as if El Greco used the hills to work as a pedestal. It is thought that this painting's enigmatic symbolism could be related to the mysticism that infused the city during the period.
View of Toledo and View and Plan of Toledo , on display at the El Greco Museum in Toledo, have the same city as the center of its image, but a much different appearance and message. For starters, View of Toledo was painted before the latter. It has a more vibrant feeling with all the green and white to contrast the dark blue and black. View and Plan of Toledo has a much warmer and earth tone to it with lots of browns. It is also an aerial perspective in comparison to View of Toledo. For being paintings depicting Toledo, they could not be any more different. However, they were believed to be commissioned by Pedro Salazar de Mendoza as they were found to be a part of his personal collection after his death. Salazar was very passionate about Toledo in every aspect. Due to Salazar's love of the city, it is believed to have inspired El Greco to paint both View of Toledo and View and Plan of Toledo. [2]
Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it. Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century.
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".
The Burial of the Count of Orgaz is a 1586 painting by El Greco, a prominent Renaissance painter, sculptor, and architect of Greek origin. Widely considered among his finest works, it illustrates a popular local legend of his time. An exceptionally large painting, it is divided into two sections, heavenly above and terrestrial below, but it gives little impression of duality, since the upper and lower sections are brought together compositionally.
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.
The Disrobing of Christ or El Expolio is a painting by El Greco begun in the summer of 1577 and completed in the spring of 1579 for the High Altar of the sacristy of the Cathedral of Toledo, where it still normally hangs. In late 2013 it was on temporary display at the Prado in Madrid, following a period of cleaning and conservation work there; it was returned to Toledo in 2014. It is one of El Greco's most famous works. A document dated July 2, 1577 which refers to this painting is the earliest record of El Greco's presence in Spain. The commission for the painting was secured thanks to El Greco's friendship from Rome with Luis, the son of Diego de Castilla, the dean of the Cathedral of Toledo. De Castilla senior also arranged El Greco's other major commission, on which he worked simultaneously, the paintings for the Toledan church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo.
Cretan School describes an important school of icon painting, under the umbrella of post-Byzantine art, which flourished while Crete was under Venetian rule during the Late Middle Ages, reaching its climax after the Fall of Constantinople, becoming the central force in Greek painting during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. The Cretan artists developed a particular style of painting under the influence of both Eastern and Western artistic traditions and movements; the most famous product of the school, El Greco, was the most successful of the many artists who tried to build a career in Western Europe, and also the one who left the Byzantine style farthest behind him in his later career.
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.
The Laocoön is an oil painting created between 1610 and 1614 by Greek painter El Greco. It is part of a collection at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Diana and Her Companions is a painting by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer completed in the early to mid-1650s, now at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. Although the exact year is unknown, the work may be the earliest painting of the artist still extant, with some art historians placing it before Christ in the House of Martha and Mary and some after.
Walter Arthur Liedtke, Jr. was an American art historian, writer and Curator of Dutch and Flemish Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was known as one of the world's leading scholars of Dutch and Flemish paintings. He died in the 2015 Metro-North Valhalla train crash.
View and Plan of Toledo is a landscape painting by El Greco. The image is notable for its juxtaposition of the view of Toledo with the trompe l'oeil map of the city's streets. In the composition, El Greco also included an allegory of the Tagus River, a scene of the Virgin Mary placing a chasuble on Saint Ildefonsus, and an elevation of the Tavera Hospital floating on a cloud. It was probably originally commissioned by Pedro Salazar de Mendoza and is currently preserved in the El Greco Museum in Toledo, Spain.
Saint Sebastian, or Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian is an autograph work by the famed artist Doménikos Theotokópoulos, commonly known as El Greco. It shows the Martyred Saint in an atypical kneeling posture which has led some scholars to believe it to be a compositional quotation of various works by other great masters whom the artist admired. The painting is currently on display in the Palencia Cathedral.
The Adoration of the Shepherds is a painting of the traditional subject which was painted by El Greco in 1596. It is in the European painting collection of the National Museum of Art of Romania. This unusually tall painting is a work in the group of equally tall paintings which the artist made as part of his 1596 commission known as the Doña María de Aragón Altarpiece for the Colegio de Dona Maria de Aragón in a building that is now the location of Palacio del Senado in Madrid. El Greco's signature, in Greek, may be seen on the paper in the lower left corner.
Portrait of Fernando Niño de Guevara is a 1600 painting of cardinal Fernando Niño de Guevara by El Greco, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The Immaculate Conception with St John the Evangelist is a c. 1585 oil on canvas painting of the Immaculate Conception by El Greco.
The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception is a painting of the Immaculate Conception by El Greco. The work on the painting began in 1607 and was completed in 1613. It is owned by the church of San Nicolás de Bari in Toledo, Spain. It is displayed, however, in the Museum of Santa Cruz in Toledo, Spain.
Christ Carrying the Cross is an oil painting by El Greco, produced early in his Toledo period circa de 1580. The picture depicts Christ in a moment of personal reflection as he carries the cross to his death, therefore committing the ultimate sacrifice for humankind. In the painting, Christ's eyes are lifted up to the heavens as he begins his walk towards his crucifixion. His gentle hands wrap around the cross as a stormy night floods the background. Christ Carrying the Cross is an oil painting, 105x79cm. The painting, one of numerous similar paintings by El Greco, is currently in the El Greco room in the New York art collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Allegory of the Camaldolese Order is a composition by El Greco and his workshop that survives in two paintings, one at the Instituto Valencia de Don Juan in Madrid and the other at the Museo del Patriarca in Valencia. The paintings depict a bird's-eye view of the "ideal monastery" according to the Camaldolese, and were likely commissioned as part of Fray Juan de Castañiza's petition to Philip II in 1597 to establish the benedictine monastic order in Spain.
Italo-Byzantine is a style term in art history, mostly used for medieval paintings produced in Italy under heavy influence from Byzantine art. It initially covers religious paintings copying or imitating the standard Byzantine icon types, but painted by artists without a training in Byzantine techniques. These are versions of Byzantine icons, most of the Madonna and Child, but also of other subjects; essentially they introduced the relatively small portable painting with a frame to Western Europe. Very often they are on a gold ground. It was the dominant style in Italian painting until the end of the 13th century, when Cimabue and Giotto began to take Italian, or at least Florentine, painting into new territory. But the style continued until the 15th century and beyond in some areas and contexts.