Clip & save art notes - discussion of El Greco's The Penitent Saint Peter

Arts & Activities, March, 2003 by Guy Hubbard

El Greco (1541-1614). The Penitent Saint Peter, c. 1595-1600. Oil on canvas; 47 3/8" x 42 3/8". San Diego Museum of Art. Gift of Anne R. and Amy Putnam, 1940.

ABOUT THIS PAINTING

While there is much to learn about El Greco and this painting, the most important thing is to get to know the painting and, it is hoped, come to enjoy it. El Greco's painting style is so distinctive that once students have studied it carefully, they will be able to recognize all other paintings by him. This is because his painting style and the way he composed his paintings are all very similar.

Most of El Greco's figures are elongated to make them taller and thinner than in real life. The heads are usually raised toward a strong light from above so that there are harsh shadows next to very light parts. El Greco also painted eyes in ways that other artists have never done. They are usually gazing upward and are made to look shiny and tearful, as though the person is being carried away with emotion as he prays. The robes also catch the light while, at the same time, having extremely dark shadows in the folds.

The backgrounds of El Greco's paintings are usually like. this one, in that they are dark and mysterious. Saint Peter is praying next to a shadowy cliff, relieved only by a few grapevines hanging down to break the darkness. Off to the left is a distant scene that includes a brightly lit angel and a smaller figure of a man. This kind of distant miniature painting was quite common in pictures at the time, although we might not think of including anything like it in a painting today.

After first getting to know the painting, students will need to learn other things to be able to truly appreciate it. For example, it is difficult for us to understand the religious and political upheavals that were happening dung El Greco's lifetime 500 years ago, many of which are reflected in his paintings. Power and wealth were divided between aristocrats under dictatorial rulers and equally rich and powerful church leaders, all of whom demanded absolute loyalty on pain of death.

Beginning in 1519, Spain had conquered the New World civilizations of Mexico and Peru, and was rich with the gold from those vanquished peoples. Shortly before that, in 1517, the Protestant Reformation had begun the split in Europe into northern Protestants and southern Catholics after 1,000 years of Roman Catholic rule.

Thirty years later, the Roman Catholic Church began to fight back with the Counter Reformation in an effort to regain its lost wealth and power, using the visual arts as one of its weapons. Military wars were also fought throughout Europe as northern rulers tried to remain flee from the Catholic Church while southern rulers sided with the Church to force them to return to their faith.

About the closest we may be able to get toward some kind of understanding of what was happening then is in thinking about what is going on all around us today. National, religious and ethnic enmities are once again flaring up all over the world, including deadly violence that is taking place as a result of these conflicts.

El Greco passionately supported the Roman Catholic Church and the Counter Reformation painting style known as "Mannerism." Mannerism grew out of the work of the great masters of the Italian Renaissance, particularly the later work of Michelangelo in Rome and the Venetian painters, Titian and Tintoretto. The colorful realism that is easy to recognize in Renaissance paintings gave way to somber, glaringly-lit paintings, including figures whose faces and bodies were often distorted with spiritual fanaticism.

In contrast, the art of the northern Protestant countries showed little or nothing of the exaggerated emotions present in Mannerist art. Students may be interested to learn that these two artistic traditions were carried to the New World colonies of Mexico and South America, and to the more northerly ones in what is now the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

El Greco worked in Rome and Venice, and is known to have studied with Titian. His work also shows the influence of Tintoretto. While in Venice, he is sure to have seen Tintoretto's paintings, although no one knows whether El Greco ever studied with him. El Greco also brought with him from his homeland of Crete the religious mysteries that had their roots in the Byzantine civilization of the eastern Mediterranean. All this made El Greco unique among artists. It was further enriched when he moved from Italy to Spain, where all his artistic talents and experiences came together.

No one is sure why El Greco made the journey to Spain; but, once there, he soon found a home in the Spanish heartland of the Counter Reformation in the city of Toledo--a city that had been a center of science and philosophy when the Muslim Moors from North Africa ruled Spain. Once established in Toledo, his distinctive work soon marked him as one of the greatest of all the Mannerist painters.

While El Greco periodically painted pictures for the nobility, almost all of his work was done for the single most important patron of art, the Roman Catholic Church. Because his own religious feelings were so intense, it was a natural match. Sometimes his paintings were produced for particular churches or cathedrals. Sometimes he painted pictures without having first found a buyer, hoping that they would eventually be purchased for a church. Some of his paintings were even sold for shipment abroad to the American colonies, where newly built churches needed pictures to dramatize the messages of Christianity--to colonists as well as Indian converts.