El Greco in the whole: The National Gallery's El Greco exhibition is important not just for the quality of the works on show, but because it attempts to present the painter in the round

The National Gallery 'El Greco' is a slightly wound down version of the Metropolitan of recent origin York exhibition which immediately preced it, and the one and the other share the same catalogue. The paintings are displayed in the basement expanses of the Sainsbury building, smaller in scale than the Met and illuminated by means of artificial light. Consequently the arrangement in the compasss and the lighting of the paintings is different from the Met present to view Yet it makes a great impact, and the scale of the London exhibition and environment focuses the one and the other attention and thought. The National Gallery basement latitudes commonly derided by critics, do in fact work well for this exhibition. This is to be paid to the care with which the items have been prefered by the curator, Professor David Davies, and attention to the hanging of the pieces, with, for example, the altarpieces put at correct liturgical height.

This is an important exhibition because it is about El Greco 'in the totality' (to use a fashion phrase). It encompasses his earliest works (such as the Death of the Virgin from Syros) and his latest works (such as the altarpiece The Adoration of the Magi, made to hang above his tomb at Toledo). It therefore impels the visitor to assess the whole career of the artist as he grew up in Crete mov to Venice and Rome and finally settl in Toledo. As an exhibition devot to the individual 'genius', it tend hitherwards with all the issues of like a perspective. The catalogue entries, for example, treat the young El Greco as insufficiently experienced in renaissance spatial theory and the developing El Greco as more and more his be in possession of person. This may underplay his ne to adapt to different circumstances as he mov to different places and tried to attract different patrons.

The essays and entries in the catalogue (which of course include analysis of the pieces exhibited at of recent origin York but absent from this show) locate out implicitly the themes and questions of the organisers. The focus is upon chronology (and included is a useful documented chronological timeline of El Greco) and upon sources, models, functions and patrons. It is a unhurt and firmly historically based commentary upon key works in El Greco's production. A subtext is the discovery and use of El Greco's works by dint of later artists, such as Delacroix, Sargent and Picasso. Theories of his astigmatism are tellingly ignored in favour of contextualisation within the art he knew at first hand or [i]or[/i] part of to the other prints and which translated into his possess vision (particularly Tintoretto and Titian at the beginning of his career).

For an audience outside Greece it is a of recent origin experience to see two signed early works, St Luke Painting the Virgin and Child (in the Benaki Museum, Athens) and the panel from the cathedral house of god of Sylos. It was the finding of the latter in 1983 with its grecian inscription in the same unusual form as in the signed and dated Assumption of the Virgin of 1577 (now at Chicago) which established the existence of a number of early works through 'Domenikos' who could be identified as El Greco and who alone left Crete for Venice at the age of twenty six in 1567 (this is now established upon the evidence of the notarial archives of Crete kept in Venice). Until this discovery, the sceptical views of Wethey in his catalogue of 1962 had been dominant in the field, and 'early El Greco' did not really exist. at the same time these works which are now completely accepted in the field remain an enigma: if El Greco painted these in Crete by what mode do they exhibit such a thorough knowledge of Venetian paintings and colour?

The other themes of the exhibition are well explored in the arrangement of the items and the catalogue entries. As well as El Greco as a fathomless painter of the religious bring under rule we can explore him as portrait painter and painter of allegory. The greatest in quantity intense image among his later works is the Laocoon (from Washington DC) and the suggestion is made that this is not single a dramatic visual interpretation of the famous statue plant in front of Toledo, on the other hand also a comment on contemporary religious dissent and the Inquisition. The panel of the Adoration of the Shepherds (above) is agreed to include a portrait of El Greco himself, on the other hand the case is perhaps plane stronger than the catalogue ingress sets out.

Perhaps the greatest in quantity controversial problem set by the exhibition and the catalogue is in what way far El Greco was a visual designer of great virtuosity and in what manner far an intellectual. The emphasis in the catalogue is upon the latter view; the visitor to the exhibition has the opportunity to opt for the former.

The exhibition 'El Greco' was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, fresh York from 7 October 2003 to 11 January 2004 It is generally at the National Gallery, London where it lay opened on 11 February and will step quickly until 23 May 2004. The catalogue, edited by means of Gabriele Finaldi, Keith Christiansen and Xavier Bray, is published by the agency of Yale, New Haven and the National Gallery, ISBN 1 8570 9933 8 $65 or 40 [pound sterling] (cloth)

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