The Milanese exhibition EL GRECO presents 41 works with an exhibition itinerary divided into sections designed to keep alive the artist's relationship with the places in which he lived and at the same time immediately offer visitors a precise historical-biographical reconstruction.
The exhibition brings attention to the influence of great Italian artists
Among which Michelangelo, Parmigianino, Correggio, Titian, Tintoretto, the Bassanos – chosen as a model and whose teachings El Greco never abandoned – had in his artistic practice and in particular in his version of Mannerism. The exhibition also addresses the theme of the change of scale compared to what El Greco painted on Italian soil, mostly small-format works such as the Modena Triptych or the Adoration of the Magi in the Lázaro Galdiano Museum in Madrid. A surprising change of scale, visible in compositions such as the version of El Expolio from the Church of Santa Leocadia in Toledo or The Baptism of Christ by the Ducal de Medinaceli Foundation. Finally, the return to the frontal and direct conception typical of Byzantine icons.
The exhibition is made up of 5 fundamental moments, designed as thematic areas
The first section, entitled The crossroads, deals with the painter's beginnings in the circle of Cretan icon production and his subsequent apprenticeship in Venice and then in Rome. A decisive stage in which he definitively becomes a Latin painter, abandoning the "Greek manner" typical of the madonnari.
The second, Dialogues with Italy, exhibits a series of works created by El Greco under the direct influence of the Italian painters he admired for the use of color and light, as happened with Titian and the Bassanos, or for the mastery of the figure in the case of Michelangelo.
In the third, Painting holiness, the exhibition delves into the first phase of El Greco's work in Toledo as a painter of religious scenes and devotional paintings.
The fourth section, The icon, again, illustrates how the artist returns, in the last phase of his existence, to refer to the compositional system of the icons of his native Crete.
The exhibition concludes with a section in which homage is paid to the only mythological work created by El Greco, El Greco nel Labirinto, a late and brilliant masterpiece, full of messages that still remain incompletely interpreted today.
Loans for the exhibition
For this exhibition project, major museums have granted the loan of authentic masterpieces, including the famous Saint Martin and the beggar Laocoon from the National Gallery in Washington, the Portrait of Jeronimo De Cevallos from the Prado Museum, the two Annunciations from the Thyssen Museum -Bornemisza, the Saint John and Saint Francis of the Uffizi Galleries. The exhibition also boasts the presence of extraordinary works from ecclesiastical institutions that arrive in Italy for the first time, such as the Martyrdom of San Sebastian from the Cathedral of Palencia, the Expulsion of the Merchants from the Temple of the Church of San Ginés in Madrid and the Coronation of the Virgin of Illescas.
The EL GRECO exhibition, promoted by the Municipality of Milan Culture and produced by Palazzo Reale and MondoMostre, with the patronage of the Spanish Embassy in Italy, is curated by Juan Antonio García Castro, Palma Martínez Burgos García and Thomas Clement Salomon, with the coordination scientific by Mila Ortiz.
EL GRECO biography
Doménikos Theotokópoulos, known as El Greco, was born in Candia, on the island of Crete in 1541 and died in Toledo in 1614. In 1567, from his native Crete, he went to Venice to become a Western painter, leaving behind the characteristics of icons . In Venice and then in Rome, in the exquisite environment of the Farnese family, where he acquired knowledge of ancient statuary, his first transformation took place, becoming a painter "in the Latin manner", a style characterized by the use of color and stain as the basis of painting. However, in the complex Italian artistic environment, he is unable to find a patron and therefore decides to try his luck in Spain. He arrived in Toledo in July 1577 at the age of 41, with the hope of obtaining a commission from King Felipe II and being appointed painter of Toledo Cathedral. He failed to realize any of his dreams. His difficult character and the artistic originality of his compositions and iconography surprised everyone, as did his very high prices for the Castilian market. Despite this, Toledo provided him with an environment of friends and faithful clients where he had large commissions such as that of the Entierro del Señor de Orgaz, the chapel of San José or the sanctuary of Nuestra Señora de la Caridad in Illescas. At the same time he created a workshop, in the manner of Venetian workshops, where some versions of his most sought-after works were created, such as those of Saint Francis or those of the Magdalene in tears. Far from fashions and currents, in Toledo he found the calm necessary to continue investigating an increasingly personal, abstract and extravagant language, which can be seen in works such as the Laocoön. Upon his death on 7 April 1614, he left a vast inventory that we know about through his son Jorge Manuel Theotocopoulos.
