If, like me, you like art but you haven't studied it, you might also think of El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos, 1541-1614) as a rather gloomy painter. I've seen his paintings in the Prado in Madrid and target="_top">in the Palazzo Barbarini in Rome and also in situ at the church of Santo Tomé in Toledo where 'The Burial of the Count of Orgaz' is the centrepiece of the chapel wall. There's also an El Greco at the NGV: it's called 'Portrait of a Cardinal' and it was purchased through the Felton Bequest in 1950. You can see it here.

My take-home impression of this artist is that he painted lots of sombre noblemen in black outfits with the obligatory white ruffles, and lots of even more sombre religious paintings in very sombre colours indeed. Even allowing for the deterioration of what might have once been brighter paint colours, El Greco seems depressing.

Which is why, when I saw this book at the library, I was quite taken aback by the portrait on the front cover of this book. 'Lady in a Fur Wrap' is quite unlike any of the other El Greco portraits I've seen, and — as it turns out — also unlike the ones in this book. The painting is discussed in the chapter 'Posthumous Fame in Spain' where there is discussion about the extent to which El Greco's son, Jorge Manuel Theotokopoulos (1578-1631) was responsible for finishing some of his father's paintings after his death in 1614. And hmm, it seems to me to be a bit cheeky to put 'Lady in a Fur Wrap' on the front cover of a book about El Greco, because...

Recent research dates the work to the 1570s. Yet there are weighty arguments for considering it not a work of El Greco's at all but from the hand of a female artist, Sofonisba Anguissola (1535/40-1625).

So this painting on the front cover of a book about El Greco, probably wasn't his work at all! And from what I can see of her work at Wikipedia, she was a fine portraitist and if I ever get to go back to the Prado, I'm going to look out for the paintings that are now recognised as being painted by her.

Anyway...

This book is one of a series called Basic Art 2.0, and according to its blurb the series has evolved from its beginnings in 1985 with the title 'Picasso', to being the best-selling art book collection ever published. Listed at the back of this book there are 62 more titles representing artists from Bacon to Warhol, as well as 12 books on art genres from Abstract Impressionism to The Blaue Reiter (which was a movement of German Expressionists.) There are also 18 books about architecture, from Aalto to Zaha Hadid.

El Greco, a Prophet of Modernism measures about 26cm x 21cm and most of its 95 pages are full page, full colour reproductions of his art works. There are 9 chapters in which Scholz-Hänsel covers these self-explanatory topics:

From Icon Painter to 'Disciple of Titian'

In Search of Work in Rome and Spain

Under the Sway of Michelangelo

Censorship and Inquisition

Toledo, the Artist's New Home

The Greek Heritage in the Conflict of Confessions

Posthumous Fame in Spain

The First 'Homeless Man of Art' and the Avant-Garde

El Greco 1541-1614 Life and Work (a timeline of his life)

There are three reasons why El Greco is the best-known foreign artist of his period, yet we know much less about him than many lesser Italian artists of the post-Renaissance era. Firstly, he made a long 'pilgrimage' through the Mediterranean before finally settling in Toledo in Spain in 1577. Secondly, it was not until the 17th century that Spanish writers on art emerged, and thirdly, until Goya, there was no Spanish school of engraving, so his works weren't reproduced as prints. Still, recent research has uncovered all kinds of useful documentation, which helps to fill out the picture. Nobody is quite certain which religion he practised, but he probably trained in icon painting in a 'hybrid' Byzantine school. He quickly gained a reputation as a master in this field, and he soon started to experiment beyond the traditional motifs. There are some stunning triptychs in this chapter, on view, apparently in Modena.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/09/07/el-greco-by-michael-scholz-hansel-english-ed...… (mere)