Greco

A detailed Summary of Greco

Amid several 16th century works of art, the painting "Toledo" by El Greco (the Greek) is exhibited in the H. O. Havemeyer Collection, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. This piece is somewhat of small size and brushed in on a canvas with oil paint. Its small size and unrealistic dimmed colors make it a prominent piece in the divergent brightly decorated gallery. The exhibit is composed mainly of large black and white paintings; almost all of them Spanish of origin and made sometime in the late 16th to early 17th century.

El Greco's painting is located in the middle of the corridor surrounded by two other pieces of rather large size. The position of the canvas serves as a focal point for the whole collection, however one might expect it to be placed somewhere else, due to the unpopularity of the piece. Similar to other pieces, at its right, in the wall is the sign that states the artist's life span, 1541-1614; along with the following description :"The painter's given name was Domenikos Theotokopoulos. In Toledo, where he lived for nearly forty years, he was known as "El Greco" (the Greek). This view is the only independent landscape by the artist that survives. He has imaginatively reconfigured the city, showin

El Greco showed his great ability for capturing a very naturalistic view of the tower of the cathedral and the Alcazar palace, however he did not use this ability to its full extent with the other buildings of the city, the landscape and the people in the foreground. The details used are not quite as vivid as with the cathedral. The city walls and barracks seemed to be diffused in the foreground, the small guard towers appear to be placed there without any realistic details. The shadowing work on the masonry is also not quite as intricate and thorough as it is with the tower; all together, the foreground itself looks as if it was somewhat obscure. The rest of the painting is a landscape of the outer city limits, with a wasteland section sheltered by the gloom of the background storm and a river that flows all the way through the foreground of the painting. At times murky and veiled, the stream is broken down into three different essentials. One being, the dark shades in the background with its almost sinister surroundings; a few gray stone colored blurry buildings and a dark just about dead terrain. The other two, the more detailed fraction of the brook, and the foliage, that takes up the foreground of the canvas. El Greco used his skills to create this foreground landscape that shows little detail and realism but still holds naturalism that he used with the cathedral tower. The artist is trying to preserve the memory of the once great city during the pinnacle of the Spanish empire.

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Approximate Word count = 1007
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Arts