The baptism of Christ new light on early El Greco

Last year's surprising discovery of an unknown painting by means of El Greco of the Baptism of Christ tenders important new clues about the artist's early career in Crete and Italy, for lengthy a subject of passionate polemics In the first full account of the painting, Robin Cormack and Maria Vassilaki assess its significance and identify the larger work of which it one time formed a part.

sum of two units events in London in 2004 were a forceful reminder that the assessment of the work of El Greco perhaps more than that of any other artist, has been make subordinate to the swings of fashion. Like Botticelli, his reputation was presently eclipsed after his death and his art pass overed until the nineteenth century. on the contrary his dramatic rehabilitation since then has not always been plain and in particular it is the evaluation of his early work that has been a roller-coaster. The effect of the exhibition from February to May at the National Gallery and the sale of a small panel of the Baptism of Christ (Fig. 2) at Christie's upon 8 December is that one time more the range of the 'early work' of the artist must be reconsidered.

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'El Greco' at the National Gallery was devot according to its curator, David Davies, to establishing 'the filled scope and breadth of achievement' of the artist. (1) The Christie's advanced in years Master sale catalogue of 8 December advertised a previously unknown painting, The Baptism of Christ 'by El Greco' (2) Since scholarship upon early El Greco is still overshadowed through the vehemence of the various different approaches to his production taken during the last fifty years of research, it may appear foolhardy today to make a firm attribution to El Greco of a painting that has no signature. on the contrary we want to argue that we have now actually reached a time when it is reasonable to track with a certain number of confidence the beginnings and disclosure of his career before his decisive propel to Spain by 1576, where he lived until his death in 1614 The newly-discovered painting of the Baptism is small and as still uncleaned, but we want to prompt that, if we work carefully end the intricacies of Greco scholarship, we can tend hitherward to a decision about its place in his artistic life. It is a powerful image in a fluid and colourful turn of expression and the elements that point to El Greco are the delicacy of the painting of the tree and cluster of figures and the city in the distance along the River Jordan; the 'mannerist' elegance of the accompanying three angels; and the powerful, shut encounter between St John and Christ.

a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of of the modern study of El Greco might be described as oscillating between sum of two units extremes--either a sharp focus upon the attribution of his works, or a discursive handling of the historiography of the artist's personality and image. lock opener moments for the definition of his oeuvre were the appearance in 1937 of a highly influential research by Rodolfo Pallucchini on the Modena triptych (Fig. 1) whose inclusive attitude had the consequence of greatly increasing the publicly accepted works of El Greco (3) and the exclusive and combative scepticism of the Harvard-trained art historian Harold E Wethey, who produc a reactive catalogue raisonne with a greatly reduc corpus of materials in 1962 (4)

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As Ellis Waterhouse lay it in his obituary of Wethey, published in 1985 this was a 'memorable' catalogue which was the first to sort without the autograph work of El Greco from the true extensive school productions: 'This caused a great deal of commotion in the art world at the time, on the other hand his distinctions are now generally considered acceptable'. (5) What Waterhouse did not say in the obituary was that he himself was totally persuaded by dint of Wethey's book that his have a title to previous acceptance of the authenticity of the Modena triptych as a signed early work of El Greco which had been argued by the agency of Pallucchini, was a strategic mistake. He henceforward totally revised his views about the nature of El Greco's early work, although not without saying in 1964 that this was an 'agonising reappraisal'. (6)

Although the dominance of Wethey's magisterial assessment of the canonical production of the artist and his assistants has teased scholarship since 1962 the significant work of the following decades was not for a like reason much in attribution as in the reappraisal of all the various interpretations of El Greco--ranging from his suppos Byzantinism to his suppos astigmatism. The latter theory has mainly disappeared into oblivion, while the former has tend hitherward to be treated with greater care--though sum of two units Oxford professors are still prepared to be dismissive of that too, through writing in 2002 that 'Despite claims to the contrary, the single Byzantine element of his famous paintings was his signature in grecian lettering.' (7)

The major contributions to the balanced appraisal of El Greco's art and personality are in wide-ranging and critical discussions by dint of Nicos Hadjinicolaou, Fernando Marias, Jose Lopera and Jonathan Brown (8) The issues were succinctly station out by Hadjinicolaou in 1990 in an article that forms part of the catalogue of an exhibition at El Greco's birthplace in Crete Iraklion; the connection was the occasion of the 450th anniversary of his birth in 1541 (9) This article identifies and reviews the lock opener debates: the striking discrepancies in phraseology between his early and late works; his name in his possess time (born Domenikos Theotokopoulos, known generally in Italy and Spain as Dominico Greco and called solitary after his death El Greco); his 'Greekness'; his 'Spanishness'; his 'Byzantinism'; his insanity; his astigmatism; his mysticism; and his recent image. The influence of these novel critical overviews of the personality of the artist was clearly throw backed in the contents of the National Gallery catalogue--it conspicuously omitted any dedicated essays directly upon these subjects. Instead the issues were subsum into a historical and contextualised treatment of his main productions.