_El Greco _
By: G
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 impressivenessIn 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, and often bordered beyond
understanding and the irrational Mannerism was thought of as “anticlassical”
in that it broke the classic tradition- the tradition of Antiquity and the
Renaissance. Mannerism surfaced in the first half of the sixteenth century in
Florence and later throughout Italy who was desolate by the French and Spanish
armies. In the full tide of the classic Renaissance a number of strange,
restless works had come into existence. These new paintings first appeared in
the field of religious composition. They no longer expressed the classic
beauty and symmetry the reassurance of the Renaissance, which everyone could
understand and cherish. Their aim was to be bright and determined on external
effects. In many cases they were more reminiscent of the conjuring tricks of a
magician than the work of art that soothes and delights Paintings of the
Mannerist style tended to express beauty that affected a fashion and in turn
produced an impact with supernatural visions. In other cases, the painter
seemed chiefly concerned with tricks of brawn and muscle. Mannerist artists
enjoyed disagreement and paradox for their own sake in order to disconcert by
the direct opposite itself. The difficulty of the subject-matter made the
artist well aware that they were living in a world of tension. The interlacing
conflicts expressed themselves in the spirit form of many works A reason why
the art of the Mannerist period was quicker to reflect the restless uncertain
atmosphere of the time was because the uncertainties of the situation in
Italy. The failure of ambitions to integrate city states into large unity did
not lead to the development of bourgeois republics. It opened the way for
common bankers to take over the control of the cities and the patronage of
art According to the tasteful explanations of the Patonic Academy in
Florence, Mannerist paintings “should reflect the ideals of the artists, they
should be intellectual mirror images of the arts rather than servile
imitations of nature.” This standard was embraced by the first generation of
Mannerists in Florence and Northern Italy. It ordained artistic method in
Rome, Venice and Fontainbleu, and even more so in the Northern centers of art.
It was due to this propose that the figures seem to lose contact with nature
and man’s actual environment, and to take their place in the painting as if
floating in some kind of unreal medium, inclined beside one another, but
joined by an emotional or intellectual bond. El Greco’s sleeping apostles are
creatures of loneliness, discovered in the shell of their dreams. There are
several reasons for the relatively swift spreading of Mannerist style
throughout cultivated Europe, and for its similarity, despite geographical
distances and economic differences. Both the uniqueness of its style and its
spreading were partly due to the peculiar popularity of the techniques of
reproduction then available. Literary sources refer the prevalent diffusion of
engravings of the work of Italian masters Through the proficient genius of
El Greco, who took a acute interest in the intellectual currents of his time
the style spread as far as distant Spain. At the same time that Spanish and
French invaders were in control of Italy, France, Spain, England and the
German city states were fighting their own long-enduring wastes The
characteristics of Mannerism first made their appearance in the full during
the period of the classical Renaissance. It began to spread and finally it
prevailed. Similarly, in the second half of the sixteenth century, the Baroque
style began to come forth and conquer. The judgment of the Council of Trent
ran counter to the philosophy as well as the literature and art of the
Renaissance. The decisions also disagreed with both the sprit of classical
mythology and the conclusions of natural sciences. In fact they engage in
active battle for absolutism in the rule of the Church and the temporal
monarch. The churches of the Jesuit order considered the new standard in art.
They did not advocate silent dedication, they were designed as mediums for the
preacher and the religious propagandist. Making use of the documents and the
characteristics of the Mannerists artists, the new style was a form of
assertion which alarmed a sacred faith in the believer, giving him an active
sense of partaking in the mysteries of religion. The solemn guaranty of the
Renaissance portraits, the stiff and chill portraits of Mannerism were
replaced by radiant allegorical representations of the dominant princes and
monarchs producing a feeling of awe and acquiescence before their almost
superhuman power in the spectator’s breast. Paintings were of classical gods
and goddesses, extraordinary in flying draperies and their fervid and
unsettled indications However, this was all that cultivated Europe had in
common during the Baroque period. The international similarity of Mannerist
art which had lasted for about a century, disintegrated England, but the
widespread notions of art began to contrast in France, Italy and Spain. The
bourgeois perspective of the Dutch Baroque naturally familiarized the Dutch
painters towards realism. There is no dilemma in determining whether one is
looking at the work of a Northern or Southern arts, an Italian or a Dutch. The
national characteristics break through the thin international coating that
developed during the Mannerist period. The diffusion and victory of Baroque
art was at the same time a success for unique national characteristics. Some
Mannerist artist were able to combine themselves in the melting pot of the
European public and benefited most form the prudent principles of their times.
A Baroque painter even conserved his national characteristics Baroque made
use of characteristics of the Mannerist style by engaging and future maturing
them. There was more unity in Mannerist style’s outweighing ideas and more
variance in its forms of presentation. Classicism, however, was piercingly
against everything mutual to Mannerism and the Baroque. It condemned Mannerism
in some unstable terms, with all its integrity and corruption’s The Masters,
such as El Greco were forgotten, but that taste in art could not be hidden
forever. Mannerist art came back to life after it had been dead for a few
centuries. It fist came back to life with the discovery of El Greco and
others
_Bibliography _
Bousquet, J. (1964). La Peinture manieriste. Neuchatel Haraszti-Takacs,
Marianne. (1968). The Masters of Mannerism. Corvina Press. Hauser, A. (1964).
Der Manierismus. Munich. Sherarman, J. (1967). Mannerism. London. Wolf, R. and
Millen, R. (1968). Renaissance and Mannerist Art. Harry N Abrams, Inc.
Word Count: 1771
| 
